Great Regulars: The throwaway title of the poem belies

its profundity--and perhaps guarantees it. There is a lightness and briskness about the writing here, as in so much of [Ruth] Stone's work, that evokes a near-audible voice, dryly amused and faintly teasing. The things the poet says to herself are voice-true, simple-sounding, but not simple at all. She travels a quirky route to the cosmic without abandoning the local or becoming portentous. Despite its big imaginative and intellectual reach, there's nothing in the poem that couldn't be quietly said.

The activity of hanging out the washing encloses and enables an extraordinary idea: an ant imagining (or just possibly creating) Albert Einstein.

from Carol Rumens: The Guardian: Poem of the week: Things I Say to Myself While Hanging Laundry by Ruth Stone

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