DANIEL RUEFMAN

Sleep Bringer 

 

"Ruefman's Sleep Bringer poems are raggedly emotional, humane, and accessible. Simmered in a sophisticated poetic sauce, they still maintain a raw vulnerability. The powerful loves and losses of parenthood have taken him to some difficult and desperate existential places, and he, as "sleep bringer," ponders how to keep his children safe in a dangerous world, where newborns can die inexplicably. His disillusionment with society runs throughout the collection, and religion has become as "stale" as old butterscotch candy, 'embedded' with 'grit that could not nourish and cellophane that could not save'." 

-- Sandra J. Lindow, Alchemy of Stars II

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"Intimate and illuminating, Daniel Ruefman's collection engages compassionately with frailty and loss, conveying a generosity of spirit [. . .] These poems suggest a keen awareness of human failings that interrogate a national discourse that is 'lulling us all to sleep'. " 
 

 -- Jonna Gjevre, Requiem in La Paz

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