RaveThe Los Angeles Review of BooksIn this multifaceted collection of prose poems, Ruefle proceeds to take us through her private understanding of every color’s association with sadness, not by some order of the rainbow or color wheel, but in an order all her own ... My Private Property neither gives itself over to nor requires easy categorization. In this slim book are stories short enough to warrant the name flash fiction; there are instances of biographical nonfiction, lyric essay, philosophy, and memoir. Like much of Ruefle’s work, however, My Private Property is best enjoyed simply as a sampling of moods and thoughts from the same intelligent, delving mind, the kind of pieces one reads for questions, not for answers. Ruefle’s much-praised facility for language, inescapably poetic even when technically considered prose, offers surprise and communion on each page ... Ruefle suggests that if we consider conformity and regulation from the right angle, even they can offer us a revelation, a mystery, or simply a bright shock of joy ... a slim but brimming gift.
