Ruby for Grief

by Michael Burkard

Burkard, Michael

Genres: Poetry

70 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1981

About the author

He graduated from Hobart College and from the Iowa Writers' Workshop with an MFA in 1973. He taught at Kirkland College (1975–78) and Sarah Lawrence College (1983–84, 1986–87), and has taught in the M.F.A. Program in Creative Writing at Syracuse University since 1997. He has been a visiting writer at New York University (1991) and the University of Louisville (1992, 1996), as well as a writer-in-residence at Austin Peay State University (1990). During the 1990s he has also worked as an alcoholism counselor, particularly with children whose lives have been impacted by alcoholism. His poems have appeared in American Poetry Review,The Paris Review, Ploughshares, APR, Ironwood, and Quarterly West.

Reviews

[Kent · Rating 5 out of 5]

What might be most interesting to me is how the 'you' in the book is never completely clear. And while there could be an impulse to make it ironic or clever, Burkard keeps the tone in this tragicomic area, so that the tragedy is true. And of course, as with In a White Light, he keeps a light, imaginative touch with the images.

[George · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not enough good can be said about the mysterious, surreal quality of the poems of Michael Burkard. Ruby for Grief is an incredible book. Burkard's poems read like flawless translations--not just translations from the European poets he admires (like Cesare Pavese, Attila Josef, and other remarkable and often-neglected poets), but translations from the way we try to tongue some totemic dream.

[GD · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a great title. I loved this book thirty years ago. I wish I had it on a shelf so I could reread.