Elegies

by Muriel Rukeyser

An elegant relaunch of Muriel Rukeyser’s Elegies , previously available only in a limited edition, celebrates the centennial of her birth "Not all things are blest, but the seeds of all things are blest." ― Muriel Rukeyser, “Elegy in Joy” First published by New Directions in 1949, Muriel Rukeyser’s Elegies were written over a seven years period the end of the Spanish Civil War, World War II, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the beginnings of the Cold War. Both and homage to Rilke’s Duino Elegies and a spiritual reckoning that is particularly resonant today, these poems present no angelic orders, only the difficulties of living in the modern world, the depths of shipwreck, and “Love that gives us ourselves, in the world known to all.”

Genres: Poetry

Hardcover

First published September 24, 2013

About the author

Muriel Rukeyser was an American poet and political activist, best known for her poems about equality, feminism, social justice, and Judaism. Kenneth Rexroth said that she was the greatest poet of her "exact generation".

One of her most powerful pieces was a group of poems entitled The Book of the Dead (1938), documenting the details of the Hawk's Nest incident, an industrial disaster in which hundreds of miners died of silicosis.

Her poem "To be a Jew in the Twentieth Century" (1944), on the theme of Judaism as a gift, was adopted by the American Reform and Reconstructionist movements for their prayer books, something Rukeyser said "astonished" her, as she had remained distant from Judaism throughout her early life.

Reviews

[Craig Werner · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the first book I've added to the "favorites" shelf in quite a while. I've come to Rukeyser by way of Adrienne Rich, and I read this in tandem with a re-reading of An Atlas of the Difficult World, which worked to the advantage of both poets. Rich has testified to Rukeyser's influence or, better example, especially later in her career, and Atlas (and other later work) definitely responds to MR by rethinking the possibilities that may or may not have been pursued at the time. I'd read MR and respected more than loved her before coming to the Elegies, which were written over a ten year period spanning the Spanish Civil War to the start of the post-WWII Cold War.

Read as a unit--they weren't originally published that way--the Elegies represent a thinking and re-thinking of how to maintain hope, especially via the younger generation, in a world where fascism has become essentially invisible. (And, yes, that's America in the time of Trump.) Deeply influenced by currents in biological thought that emphasized the relationship between ancestry, form, and function, she reconsiders poetic traditions bequeathed by Whitman and T.S. Eliot in ways that point towards Thomas Pynchon's vision of an "underground" resisting whatever form of authority claims power at a given moment.

I've reread this three times over the last couple of weeks and it'll stay in the rotation for the foreseeable future.

[Shoshana · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm glad these poems were collected as one book. First published by in 1949, these poems were written over a seven-year period from the end of the Spanish Civil War, through World War II, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki, to the start of the Cold War. Many of Rukeyser's poems are either about war or incorporate war, and these are no exception. There are only 10 poems, but they are long and somewhat difficult. I felt like I needed two days with each poem. I did ultimately enjoy them all, but the final one, "Tenth Elegy. Elegy in Joy", fit perfectly with the last day of the year, when I read it, in anticipation of new beginnings in the new year:

"Now there are no maps and no magicians.
No prophets but the young prophet, the sense of the world.
The gift of our time, the world to be discovered.
All the continents giving off their several lights,
the one sea, and the air. And all things glow....

Nourish beginnings, let us nourish beginnings.
Not all things are blest, but the
seeds of all things are blest.
The blessing is in the seed.

This moment, this seed, this wave of the sea, this look, this instant of love.
Years over wars and an imagining of peace. Or the expiation journey
toward peace which is many wishes flaming together,
fierce pure life, the many-living home.
Love that gives us ourselves, in the world known to all
new techniques for the healing of a wound,
and the unknown world. One life, or the faring stars."

[Maja · Rating 3 out of 5]

I haven't read poetry seriously in years, so I guess I'm out of practice. This was too dense, the meaning too hidden, for me. I just prefer writing to be a bit more frank.

[William · Rating 1 out of 5]

I don't know. Tender Buttons was more interesting. I think I understood Tender Buttons more. And I think I was supposed to understand this. Not quite digging it.