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Woman with Crows, Poems by Ruth Thompson
The memorable voices of Ruth Thompson’s Woman with Crows
form a chorus that is a narrative of a life, and of memory itself.
Praise for Woman with Crows
“There are many Zen-like moments of pure being in these
poems, and there is also grief and questioning. Yet Ruth
Thompson stares down her hungry ghosts and tames them. ‘Let
me grow a word for this,’ she says in ‘Humus,’ and grows many
words, meditations, songs, hymns, memories, biographies, and
tales. She revels in the molasses sun of a life well lived, and
taken together, these poems accrue to a kind of wise triumph.”—
Frank X. Gaspar
“Ruth Thompson’s expansive voice is equally attuned to the
swamp of the earth and to the ghost-filled haunts of the spiritworlds this rich collection embodies. Thompson’s range of
reference—from Buddhist ghosts to Grimm fairy tales to
Sumerian and Greek goddesses to personal and ancestral tales
and legends—is wide and knowing, yet always transformed by a
lived and experienced imagination, in a language that is wistful in its laments, sensual in its
celebrations. These courageous poems journey the dark and beautiful mysteries and bravely offer,
in a lyric that is fiercely wild and refreshingly independent, deeply earned wisdoms.”—Philip
Terman
“Reader, what a journey you’re in for! This book tells the tales of a lifetime, traversing
landscapes from childhood to grandmotherhood. ‘Let us throw away caution, / emblazon our
retinas / with the flare and flame of it,’ exhorts Ruth Thompson early in the collection; then she
proceeds to do just that, in poems by turn whimsical, mythic, excruciating, exuberant and
unflinching. Here, as in life, mourning and celebration often cohabitate; whether she’s praising
‘the lost otter of the body’ or exhuming family trauma, Woman with Crows will keep you
enthralled.”—Ruth L. Schwartz
About Ruth Thompson
Ruth Thompson grew up in California and received a BA from Stanford and a PhD from Indiana
University. She has been an English professor, librarian, college dean, and yoga teacher in Los
Angeles. She now lives in Hilo, Hawai’i and western New York, where she teaches writing,
meditation, and yoga. Her poems have won the New Millennium Writings Poetry Award and the
Harpur Palate Milton Kessler Memorial Prize. Woman with Crows is her second book of poetry,
and was a finalist for the A Room of Her Own Foundation’s To The Lighthouse Prize in 2010.
Her chapbook, Here Along Cazenovia Creek (Saddle Road Press, 2011), was the basis for a
collaborative performance of poetry and dance with Japanese dancer Shizuno Nasu.
Ordering Information
Order Woman with Crows from amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com through http://www.wordpress.com/ruth-thompson.html
ISBN: 9781936370832, 118 pages, $19.00, softcover.
July 15, 2012
For immediate release:
WOMAN WITH CROWS, by Ruth Thompson
WOMAN WITH CROWS, a new book of poems by Ruth Thompson, is now available at amazon.com,
barnesandnoble.com, and through Ingram.
Woman with Crows was a finalist for the AROHO Foundation’s To The Lighthouse Prize in 2010.
Thompson’s poems have won the New Millennium Writings Poetry Award and the Harpur Palate Milton
Kessler Memorial Prize.
Woman with Crows is Thompson’s second collection of poetry. Her first, Here Along Cazenovia Creek,
was one of The Scrapper Poet’s “best chapbooks of 2011” and was performed by the great Japanese
dancer Shizuno Nasu in 2012.
a
Ruth Thompson and Shizuno Nasu, Hilo, February 2012.
Thompson’s readings have been called “extraordinary,” “ebullient,” and “pure joy!” She will be reading
in southern California and New Mexico in October, in New York and New England in December, and in
northern California in June 2013.
To schedule an event, contact Ruth Thompson at [email protected].
For sample poems, reader reviews, video of the poetry and dance performance, and audio of readings,
visit http://www.ruththompson.net.
To request a review copy of Woman with Crows, or for consignment copies in connection with an event,
contact Ruth Thompson at [email protected].
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bringing out approximately 50 titles per year by such authors as Nick Carbo, Philip Dacey, Rachel Hadas,
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Contact:
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