"Ruefle is clearly one of the best American poets writing, and her body of work is remarkable for its spiritual force, intelligence, stylistic virtuosity, and adventurousness."--Tony Hoagland "For more than thirty years, she has freshened American poetry by humbly glorifying both the inner life and the outward experience."--William Carlos Williams Award citation Over the course of fifteen years, Mary Ruefle delivered a lecture every six months to a group of poetry graduate students. Collected here for the first time, these lectures include "Poetry and the Moon," "Someone Reading A Book Is A Sign Of Order In The World," and "Lectures I Will Never Give." Intellectually virtuosic, instructive, and experiential, Madness, Rack, and Honeyresists definition, demanding instead an utter--and utterly pleasurable--immersion. Mary Rueflehas published more than a dozen books of poetry, prose, and erasures. She lives in Vermont.