In his third collection, Ruddy departs somewhat from the narrative distance characteristic of both Pond and The Sticks of Inquiry and allows his speakers a raw, emotional voice that often sacrifices anything poetic for a pure and immediate response to their subjects. In this bare immediacy, a poetry that is as rooted in Li Po and Frank O'Hara as it is in Bruce Springsteen and Joe Strummer was allowed to breathe. Hurricane Season delves unabashedly into the midlife American experience and leaves it all on the page, sometimes bloody and hoarse, maybe a little road worn, but just as much enlightened for all it was worth.