Ruth Danon

Word Has It: Poems Ruth Danon

Poetry. Jewish Studies. Aging. WORD HAS IT, by American poet Ruth Danon takes on the unease that has accompanied the troubling politics that have created so much disturbance in the last few years. The book launches the reader into a journey marked by foreboding and innuendo. In the first section the speaker proceeds on an uneasy path while a character named 'Word, ' referring to herself in the third person, offers acerbic commentary along the way. In the second section, the speaker retreats first into the domestic, then to a deeper interiority in which a journey through the rooms of a house embodies a study of various states of consciousness that lead her to the recognition of her role as a poet. By the end of the second section, the speaker is ready to leave the interior space and venture into the third section, where she takes on the daunting poetic task of augury. The foreboding of the first section culminates in the violence that has been hinted at all along. Danon evokes language as backdrop, as foundation, as scaffolding--a quiet though inexorable landscape in which we witness our most cherished and frightening transformations.--Kristina Marie Darling Ruth Danon gives us one of her most darkly oracular works... The poems are acid, ingenious, and unsentimental.--Andrew Levy Deep and skeptical, natural and magical, melancholic and beautiful, Danon's oracle makes a truly compelling statement--one to be heeded, one to be savored.--Stephen Massimilla Ruth Danon's extraordinary poems take us directly into states of feeling and perception that are subtle and profound... These are necessary poems.--Chase Twichell