BOOKS
TURN UP THE HEAT
Published 2023 by Nirala Publications
“A beautiful book, at turns tender, wry, and heartbreaking.” - Saïd Sayrafiezadeh
“You close this visionary book with a sense that things destroyed can also be put back together, that a fine and canny calibration of light in relation to dark may not rescue the planet but could save our souls.” - Natania Rosenfeld
American poet Ruth Danon hates and fears the cold in all its forms: literal, metaphorical, external, internal. In Turn Up the Heat she ventures into the chill and explores as well as its problematic opposite. In poems that range widely in form and style and that travel through place and time, Danon introduces us to St. Anthony, who stole fire from the devil and heated the icy desert, and heretic and genius Giordano Bruno, whose prescient astronomical vision led him led him to be burned at the stake.
WORD HAS IT
Published 2018 by Nirala Publications
"Ruth Danon gives us one of her most darkly oracular works. . . . .The poems are acid,ingenious, and unsentimental." –- Andrew Levy, editor, Resist Much, Obey Little
"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, author, Horses Where the Answers Should Have Been (winner of Kingsley Tufts Award)
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.
STRONGER THAN FEAR
Poems of Empowerment, Compassionvand Social Justice
Published 2022 by Cave Moon Press
Edited by Carol Alexander & Stephen Massimilla
In this timely and timeless collection, remarkable poets—both emerging and established—bring myriad traditions, styles, and vital perspectives to pressing questions, such as how poetry can help us to overcome obstacles to empowerment, compassion, social change, and educational opportunity. Drawing from the work of teachers, artists, and activists, Stronger Than Fear moves us into sudden and startling awareness. These poems arrive at their truths with insight and generosity, with courage and spirit.
Sales benefit the Malala Fund to help empower global education for girls.
LIMITLESS TINY BOAT
Published 2015 by BlazeVOX
"By investigating the minutiae of life--the stuff that anchors us, a stone and its echo, paradoxes constructed by language--Ruth Danon investigates nothing short of Thanatos and Eros. The journey of the LIMITLESS TINY BOAT is fierce and fearless. Watch out! These poems expand and contract--breathe--as they are read. A substantial achievement." --Martine Bellen
"Ruth Danon's poems manage to fuse seemingly irreconcilable qualities: they are both erudite and colloquial; concerned with ideas yet frankly personal; they have the reach of abstraction while also being tactile and concrete. The result is a shimmering originality that makes LIMITLESS TINY BOAT a marvel to read."--Jennifer Egan
TRIANGULATION FROM A KNOWN POINT
Published 1990 by North Star Line
"Ruth Danon layers disparate voices -- from the impersonally oracular to the colloquially funny -- as if in three dimensions, and by their echoes we can place ourselves with surprising accuracy." - Ann Beattie
"Ruth Danon's poems are full of wonder and quiet thoughtfulness. What is deepest about them is their clarity adn their various tones of voice. They probe and unfold. The urgency of the poems is melodic, inviting." - Michael Burkard
This book is Ruth Danon's first collection, though her poems have been widely published during the past decade in leading periodicals, such as The New England Review, The Boston Review, the Paris Review, and Tendril. As a poet, Danon brings to her work a remarkable force of intelligence, wit and -- most importantly -- passion.