For discussion today, I will be looking specifically at Trances of the Blast from the perspective that Mary Ruefle is stringing the theme of words and language. When looking at the selected poems that we read for today, there are a lot of different themes to be discussed that Ruefle utilizes, but ultimately I will analyze these sets of poems as connecting directly to this theme of language. For class, please try to be prepared with a few poems that are examples of this theme.
If you need a starting example, begin with “Mimosa.” In this poem, Ruefle is speaking from the writer’s mind through this poem about mimosa. When she writes, “I’ve always wanted to use/ malarky and henna in a poem/ and now I have,” she is speaking from the writer’s mind. Writing appears as a running theme throughout Ruefle’s poem “Mimosa” as well as others.