By Vern Rutsala

The Moment's Equation is the winner of the 2003 Richard Snyder Publication Prize and a National Book Award Finalist for 2005.

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• Reviewed in Midwest Book Review (June, 2006)

This wonderful book of poetry, which was a 2005 National Book Award finalist, is filled with scintillating visions of life, home, work, and family expressed in accessible language through which the poet magnifies daily events into art. "The Moment's Equation" takes us through decades of America. There are evocative settings, memorable events; there are many roads to regard, many lives to consider. Each poem journeys to a destination. With a remarkable deftness and an unerring sense of direction, Vern Rutsala gets us there.

-National Book Award Judge

Singular as his poems may be, one never doubts that the author is one of us. In his methods, he has never abandoned the idea of a poetry accessible to a great audience. In his subject matter, he stands within the circumstances of the majority of his countrymen. You won't read about it anywhere but in art, and nowhere any better than in Rutsala.

- Marvin Bell

I know of no poet who has grown more surely, steadily and triumphantly over the years.

- Carolyn Kizer

There is one way in particular in which Vern Rutsala could and in my view should be an example to us all, an example of how to put to maximum use the simplest things in our lives.

- Donald Justice

About the Author

Vern Rutsala's The Moment's Equation, winner of the 2003 Richard Snyder Publication Prize, was a 2005 National Book Award Finalist.  Rutsala is the author of twelve collections of poetry, including The Window, Laments, The Journey Begins, and Little-Known Sports.  Among awards for his work are a Guggenheim Fellowship, two NEA grants, the Juniper Prize, an Oreqon Book Award, two Carolyn Kizer Poetry Prizes, the Duncan Lawrie Prize, a Pushcart Prize, the Akron Poetry Prize, the Northwest Poetry Prize, and a Masters Fellowship from the Oregon Arts Commission.

Photo Credit: Joan Rutsala