Essential Ruth Stone

Ruth Stone (1915–2011) was born in Roanoke, Virginia, and is recognized as one of the most remarkable voices in twentieth-century American poetry, whose work gained its fullest recognition only late in her life. She received her BA from the University of Illinois. Following the suicide of her husband, the poet Walter Stone, in 1959, she raised three daughters alone, teaching at dozens of universities to support her family before settling at SUNY Binghamton. Her collection In the Next Galaxy (Copper Canyon, 2002) won the National Book Award for Poetry. She received the Wallace Stevens Award and the Vermont Poet Laureate designation. Her What Love Comes To: New & Selected Poems was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.