Funds for Bookworm are provided in part by Lannin Foundation.

Boots!

Where would we be without books?

Where would we be without good?

No, Timberd.

It's a rhetorical question, sir.

But where would we be without books? From KCROLFORICAL Question, sir, but where would we be without books?

From KCRW and KCRW.com, I'm Michael Silverblatt, and this is Bookworm.

Today I am very happy. My guest is Mary Rufel.

She has collected her lectures under the title Madness, Rack, and Honey. And let me tell you,

this solves many of my problems. People are always asking me, where can I read a book

about poetry, about modern poetry, about death, about fear, about sentiment, about life, and I never know what to tell them.

And now I have Madness, Rack, and Honey, which is a book in which a poet, Mary Rufel, has written everything that she came to know about poetry by having to lecture on the

subject of poetry.

As she says in the book, she didn't know about poetry.

She only wrote poetry, but having to lecture about it gave her

the obligation to think about what it is she knows. And to say it in a language, as Randall

used to say, that even dogs and cats can understand.

The thrilling thing about this book is that it's not crammed with theory, the language of theory.

It's crammed with the meaning of theory, which is the meaning of being, of existence.

Mary, how did this get written over what period and with what pain?

With a great deal of pain, I can assure you.

...