Despite a brief literary career cut short by her early death, she was featured in The Best American Poetry twice and was the subject of a long tribute in verse by her teacher, Richard Howard.
[1] Schraufnagel's poems explored the troubled experience of American women with deep sympathy; when her "Carnival" was published in Feminist Studies, the editors described it in their preface as "a forgiving fantasy" of "a mother's oppressive marriage and subsequent abandonment of her children.
Her poem "Trial" was included by Charles Simic in The Best American Poetry 1992, accompanied by a note from Richard Howard, her former teacher at Houston, mourning her "manic glee.
"[11] Howard sketches out her life in brief: "the nuns had taught her / to bear the ennui / of almost any routine"; she had been a "bank-teller, waitress"; "she had been married, / yes, but he was a transvestite"; she was "Angular, graceful" and bore "the mask of a scornful dyke.
"[11] Several other poems and books published in the 1990s were dedicated to her memory, including Nancy Eimers's "In the New Year" and "Space Life" and Cathleen Calbert's Bad Judgment.