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

Today, I'm very happy to have as my guest, Mary Rufel.

Her selected poems just came out, and I have to confess, I started reading Mary Rufel fairly recently, in that she has around 013 books of various sorts, and I started on around her eighth.

Her selected poems, well, they give you the things that you will love about Mary Rufel,

in particular the quality of surprise and enchantment.

I found myself being delighted by the poems before I knew anything about them, and before I tell you anything about them, I thought

that it would be more interesting for you to hear her, her voice in a series of poems, because

secretly, I find that her technique is something that I would call the pump of the imagination.

The imagination gets pressed like a spigot on a chocolate syrup jar,

and the poem demands that the imagination keep working, and if not, she'll keep pumping.

And when you hear her voice in poem after poem,

you'll grow familiar with this quality,

and by the time you're finished hearing them,

I think like me you'll be in love.

Kiss of the Sun.

...