"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 citationOver 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 Honey resists definition, demanding instead an utter—and utterly pleasurable—immersion.Mary Ruefle has published more than a dozen books of poetry, prose, and erasures. She lives in Vermont.