The Essential Muriel Rukeyser: Poems
The definitive edition of selected work from a poet whose influence continues to be widely felt today, introduced by Natasha Trethewey

Engaging closely with the violence, oppression, and injustice that she witnessed in her lifetime, Muriel Rukeyser was one of the seminal poets of the mid-twentieth century. Closely informed by issues relating to equality, social justice, feminism, and Judaism, her impassioned poetry was often seen as a mode of social protest, but it was also heralded for its deep emotional impact; its personal perspective; forthright discussion of the female experience, particularly sex and single parenthood at a time when these topics were largely taboo; and its wide-ranging exploration of genre and form. As Adrienne Rich wrote: “Muriel Rukeyser’s poetry is unequalled in the twentieth-century United States…She pushes us…to enlarge our sense of what poetry is about in the world, and of the place of feelings and memory in politics.”

The Essential Muriel Rukeyser represents the curation of Rukeyser’s most enduring and urgent work, gathered in one volume that spans the many decades of her life and career, and with an introduction from Natasha Trethewey, one of our most important contemporary poets.

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The Essential Muriel Rukeyser: Poems
The definitive edition of selected work from a poet whose influence continues to be widely felt today, introduced by Natasha Trethewey

Engaging closely with the violence, oppression, and injustice that she witnessed in her lifetime, Muriel Rukeyser was one of the seminal poets of the mid-twentieth century. Closely informed by issues relating to equality, social justice, feminism, and Judaism, her impassioned poetry was often seen as a mode of social protest, but it was also heralded for its deep emotional impact; its personal perspective; forthright discussion of the female experience, particularly sex and single parenthood at a time when these topics were largely taboo; and its wide-ranging exploration of genre and form. As Adrienne Rich wrote: “Muriel Rukeyser’s poetry is unequalled in the twentieth-century United States…She pushes us…to enlarge our sense of what poetry is about in the world, and of the place of feelings and memory in politics.”

The Essential Muriel Rukeyser represents the curation of Rukeyser’s most enduring and urgent work, gathered in one volume that spans the many decades of her life and career, and with an introduction from Natasha Trethewey, one of our most important contemporary poets.

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The Essential Muriel Rukeyser: Poems

The Essential Muriel Rukeyser: Poems

The Essential Muriel Rukeyser: Poems

The Essential Muriel Rukeyser: Poems

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Overview

The definitive edition of selected work from a poet whose influence continues to be widely felt today, introduced by Natasha Trethewey

Engaging closely with the violence, oppression, and injustice that she witnessed in her lifetime, Muriel Rukeyser was one of the seminal poets of the mid-twentieth century. Closely informed by issues relating to equality, social justice, feminism, and Judaism, her impassioned poetry was often seen as a mode of social protest, but it was also heralded for its deep emotional impact; its personal perspective; forthright discussion of the female experience, particularly sex and single parenthood at a time when these topics were largely taboo; and its wide-ranging exploration of genre and form. As Adrienne Rich wrote: “Muriel Rukeyser’s poetry is unequalled in the twentieth-century United States…She pushes us…to enlarge our sense of what poetry is about in the world, and of the place of feelings and memory in politics.”

The Essential Muriel Rukeyser represents the curation of Rukeyser’s most enduring and urgent work, gathered in one volume that spans the many decades of her life and career, and with an introduction from Natasha Trethewey, one of our most important contemporary poets.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780062985491
Publisher: HarperCollins
Publication date: 06/01/2021
Pages: 224
Sales rank: 615,960
Product dimensions: 5.40(w) x 7.20(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Muriel Rukeyser was a poet and political activist. She was born in New York City in 1913 and attended Vassar College. She published over fifteen volumes of poetry in her lifetime and received a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts in 1966. She died in New York City in 1980.


Natasha Trethewey is a former US poet laureate and the author of five collections of poetry, as well as a book of creative nonfiction. She is currently the Board of Trustees Professor of English at Northwestern University. In 2007 she won the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry for her collection Native Guard.

Table of Contents

Introduction ix

From Theory of Fight

Notes for a Poem 1

Effort at Speech Between Two People 3

Sonnet 5

This House, This Country 6

Sand-Quarry with Moving Figures 8

For Memory 10

City of Monuments 16

Metaphor to Action 18

The Blood Is Justified 19

From U.S. 1

The Road 23

West Virginia 25

Statement: Philippa Allen 28

Gauley Bridge 31

The Face of the Dam: Vivian Jones 33

Praise of the Committee 35

Mearl Blankenship 40

Absalom 43

The Disease 47

George Robinson: Blues 50

Juanita Tinsley 53

The Doctors 55

The Cornfield 60

Arthur Peyton 63

Alloy 65

The Disease: After-Effects 67

The Bill 70

The Book of the Dead 74

From a Turning Wind

Reading Time: 1 Minute 26 Seconds 81

From Beast in View

Song 83

Love and Its Doors and Windows 84

Bubble of Air 86

Letter to the Front 87

The Soul and Body of John Brown 101

From the Green Wave

This Place in the Ways 108

Then I Saw What the Calling Was 110

Private Life of the Sphinx 111

From Elegies

Fourth Elegy. The Refugees 116

Eighth Elegy. Children's Elegy 122

From Body of Waking

Haying Before Storm 128

King's Mountain 129

F. O. M. 131

Pouring Milk Away 132

[Untitled] 133

[Untitled] 134

[Untitled] 135

From Water Lily Fire

To Enter That Rhythm Where the Self Is Lost 136

From the Speed of Darkness

The Poem as Mask 137

In Our Time 138

The Overthrow of One O'clock at Night 139

Song : Love in Whose Rich Honor 140

Niobe Now 141

Anemone 143

For My Son 144

Poem 146

What They Said 147

The Backside of the Academy 148

The Flying Red Horse 151

Käthe Kollwitz 152

The Speed of Darkness 160

From Breaking Open

Waking This Morning 166

Waiting for Icarus 168

Despisals 170

Myth 172

Ballad of Orange and Grape 173

Don Baty, the Draft Resister 176

Secrets of American Civilization 177

Wherever 178

Flying to Hanoi 179

From the Gates

How We Did It 180

Islands 182

Resurrection of the Right Side 183

Poem White Page White Page Poem 185

Before Danger 186

Recovering 187

The Gates 189

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