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The Collected Poems
Muriel Rukeyser held a visionary belief in the human capacity to create social change through language. She earned an international reputation as a powerful voice against enforced silences of all kind, against the violence of war, poverty, and racism. Her eloquent poetry of witness-of the Scottsboro Nine, the Spanish Civil War, the poisoning of the Gauley Bridge laborers-split the darkness covering a shameful world. In addition to the complete texts of her twelve previously published books, this volume also features new poems discovered by the editors; Rukeyser's translations, including the first English translations of Octavio Paz's work; early work by Rukeyser not previously published in book form; and the controversial book-length poem Wake Island. An introduction by the editors traces Rukeyser's life and literary reputation and complements discerning annotations and textual notes to the poems.
712 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1978
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709 people want to read
About the author
Muriel Rukeyser
82 books155 followersMuriel 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.
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.
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
August 6, 2010
I came to Rukeyser's poetry and to this book late, though I'd had her around me for years. I was attracted finally by someone liking her to Whitman and pleased by Anne Sexton's considering her "the mother of us all." This Collected Poems is an impressive addition to any poetry shelf. One is allowed to look over the entire panorama of Rukeyser as if standing on a shore and seeing her work as vast banks of clouds crouched on the horizon. Like weather, always impressive with authority and beauty. Not wanting to be hammered by what I'd heard were her powerful political ideas was one thing that kept me from these poems. But I thought them not oppressive at all. I was pleased to see they were more like guidebooks, essays lying dense and conversational on the page. Rather than politics I thought the poems more concerned with unfairness, war, imbalances, and exclusions. But for the most part she didn't write small lyrics, and they aren't personal. They're great sturdy chunks of stanza and thought, poems as solid as cathedrals. Her first volume of poetry, Theory of Flight, amazingly written by a 21-year old woman, was followed by 40 more years of her constantly intelligent poetry. This isn't the carnival frenzy of words I sometimes like, all twirling skirts and color. More the steady reliable roll of language burnishing our shores of imagination and awareness. Mother again. Whitman again.
June 21, 2010
She is my favorite poet. She understands me and I read this book like people read the bible. It is like my bible. This book travelled the country with me since I was 19. It even survived Baltimore and was sent back to me with only a few other interesting items. I lost it last summer and it disturbs me still. That is just how last summer was - lol.
July 16, 2021
I've read this book many times.
Muriel Rukeyser feels the interconnectedness of all things keenly, and painfully. She believes in ideals, social justice and the divine thread interconnecting us all. She is almost never funny, never easy, never anything but a Poet, who feels the Weight and Power of the mantle, and hears the cry of the oppressed.
Most of all, Rukeyser writes in music. I never knew English could be so much like Bells and snares inside my head, tinkling magic spells. Just have a listen:
I look into my face in the square glass.
Under it, a bright flow of cold water.
At once, a strong arrangement of presences:
I am holding a small glass
under the little flow
at Fern Spring, among the western forest.
A cool flaw among the silence.
The taste of the waterfall.
In the night
wandering room to room of this world
I move by touch
and then something says
let the city pour
the sleep of the beloved
Let the night pour
down
all its meanings
Let the images pour
the light is dreaming
Muriel Rukeyser feels the interconnectedness of all things keenly, and painfully. She believes in ideals, social justice and the divine thread interconnecting us all. She is almost never funny, never easy, never anything but a Poet, who feels the Weight and Power of the mantle, and hears the cry of the oppressed.
Most of all, Rukeyser writes in music. I never knew English could be so much like Bells and snares inside my head, tinkling magic spells. Just have a listen:
I look into my face in the square glass.
Under it, a bright flow of cold water.
At once, a strong arrangement of presences:
I am holding a small glass
under the little flow
at Fern Spring, among the western forest.
A cool flaw among the silence.
The taste of the waterfall.
In the night
wandering room to room of this world
I move by touch
and then something says
let the city pour
the sleep of the beloved
Let the night pour
down
all its meanings
Let the images pour
the light is dreaming
July 31, 2016
I read this every time I miss my dad. I remember sitting at the front porch and watching him reading her poems to me while smoking a cigarette. Her poems are so fresh and it's fascinating how she brought new perspectives on many controversial issues during the 20th century . And her metaphors are just so beautiful.
King's Mountain
In all the cities of this year
I have longed for the other city.
In all the rooms of this year
I have entered one read room.
In all the futures I have walked toward
I have seen a future I can hardly name.
But the road we drive
Turns and enters upon another country.
I have seen white beginnings,
A slow sea without glaze or speed,
Movement of a long lying-down dance.
This is fog-country. Milk. Country of time.
I see your tormented color, the steep front of your storm
Break dissipated among limitless profiles.
I see the patterns of waves in the cross-sea
Advance, a fog-surface over the fog-floor,
Seamounts, slow-flowing. Colors. Plunge-point of air.
King's Mountain
In all the cities of this year
I have longed for the other city.
In all the rooms of this year
I have entered one read room.
In all the futures I have walked toward
I have seen a future I can hardly name.
But the road we drive
Turns and enters upon another country.
I have seen white beginnings,
A slow sea without glaze or speed,
Movement of a long lying-down dance.
This is fog-country. Milk. Country of time.
I see your tormented color, the steep front of your storm
Break dissipated among limitless profiles.
I see the patterns of waves in the cross-sea
Advance, a fog-surface over the fog-floor,
Seamounts, slow-flowing. Colors. Plunge-point of air.
February 2, 2012
Every time I revisit this book I discover something new, fascinating. Rukeyser's poetry can be read from so many different angles (political, personal, philosophical) and discussed so inexhaustibly that after I read her I have her poetry imbedded in my thoughts for quite some time. Her lines are just illuminating:
"The days grow older and the stars cross over / And my wild bed turns slowly among the stars."
"On Sundays their dreams are longer, and their waking / is a long exhalation of their weeks, decompressed."
"seeing no color but coal, / we were the living who could have their lives."
Rukeyser is my favorite poet, because her poetry is Real, Visceral. I am slightly disappointed that she hasn't got her due. How long does it take for a genius to transcend? Just read her work and let me know if it doesn't leave it's impression...
"The days grow older and the stars cross over / And my wild bed turns slowly among the stars."
"On Sundays their dreams are longer, and their waking / is a long exhalation of their weeks, decompressed."
"seeing no color but coal, / we were the living who could have their lives."
Rukeyser is my favorite poet, because her poetry is Real, Visceral. I am slightly disappointed that she hasn't got her due. How long does it take for a genius to transcend? Just read her work and let me know if it doesn't leave it's impression...
May 1, 2014
Though Rukeyser isn't one of my favorite poets, her works shine with moments of power, insight, and wisdom, and there's no denying that she was "ahead of her time" in terms of politically and socially engaged poetry. As a collection, this has many highs and lows, and her strongest moments are within the many poetic sequences she wrote. For poets, though, and for all those readers and writers interested in socio-politically engaged writings (or writers) and/or feminist writers, Rukeyser can't be ignored. And, in the end, there are enough moments in this collection which I'll return to and treasure that the reading of the full collected works was well worth the time.
I wouldn't ever recommend this for the casual poetry reader, but it does have its moments, and many readers will absolutely find it worth their time.
I wouldn't ever recommend this for the casual poetry reader, but it does have its moments, and many readers will absolutely find it worth their time.
Read
December 13, 2016I would be using the poem "Waiting for Icarus." This poem is from the point of view of the mythical Icarus's girlfriend or lover, which would be a great tool for analyzing perspective because the focus is on a well-known myth but from the point of view of an unknown figure that the poet has associated with Icarus.
I would use this text as a mentor text to transition students into writing from different perspectives. This specific poem is called a "persona poem," where the poet emulates the persona of a well-known figure in history or literature. Students could either choose the figure they wish to emulate (fictional or not), or we could use this mentor text as a transition into a writeup for a specific novel we're reading, where the students pick a specific character from the novel to emulate in their persona poem.
I would use this text as a mentor text to transition students into writing from different perspectives. This specific poem is called a "persona poem," where the poet emulates the persona of a well-known figure in history or literature. Students could either choose the figure they wish to emulate (fictional or not), or we could use this mentor text as a transition into a writeup for a specific novel we're reading, where the students pick a specific character from the novel to emulate in their persona poem.
October 30, 2019
Essential reading for poets. Rukeyser is a seminal, tenacious 20th-century American lyric voice. Her life and poetics span the meat of the century, beginning with US 1 and following to the late poems written after a visit to Viet Nam. The volume contains selections from most of her collected smaller works. She possesses more heart and compassion than most. She was great teacher of direct speech. her voice moves between a lyric sense of space and time -is architectural in its expansiveness, plainness and poetic accuracy -and the edges of brevity that reflect the rise and power of abstraction in painting. For me, she shares a great deal with the way Rothko, Dove and Avery developed their own miraculous abstractions and grammars. "Wait, am I in your light? No...go on reading".
September 26, 2023
"God said, 'Let meanings move,' and there was poetry."
October 19, 2021
Rukeyser earned her reputation as the “spokespoet” of her generation. The depth and scope of her prodigious talent are clearly evident in this compilation of her collected works. The Introduction also provides insightful background material about the poet and her remarkable life.
Favorite Poems:
THEORY OF FLIGHT (1935)
“Notes for a Poem”
“The Gyroscope”
“The Lynchings of Jesus”
“Sundays, They Sleep Late”
“Citation for Horace Gregory”
“The Lover”
U.S. 1 (1938)
“The Road”
“West Virginia”
“Statement: Phillippa Allen”
“Gauley Bridge”
“The Face of the Dam: Vivian Jones”
“Praise of the Committee”
“Mearl Blankenship”
“Absalom”
“The Disease”
“George Robinson: Blues”
“Juanita Tinsley”
“The Doctors”
“The Cornfield”
“Arthur Peyton”
“Alloy”
“Power”
“The Dam”
“The Disease: After-Effects”
“The Bill”
“The Book the Dead”
“More of a Corpse Than a Woman”
A TURNING WIND (1939)
“Target Practice”
“Correspondences”
“Paper Anniversaries”
“Gibbs”
“Ann Burlak”
WAKE ISLAND (1942)
BEAST IN VIEW (1944)
“The Minotaur”
“Long Past Moncada”
“The Soul and Body of John Brown”
THE GREEN WAVE (1948)
“This Place in the Ways”
ORPHEUS (1949)
ELEGIES (1949)
BODY OF WAKING (1958)
WATERLILY FIRE (1962)
THE SPEED OF DARKNESS (1968)
“What I See”
“For My Son”
“Poem”
“Kathe Kollwitz”
“The Speed of Darkness”
BREAKING OPEN (1973)
THE GATES (1976)
“Work, for the Day Is Coming”
Favorite Poems:
THEORY OF FLIGHT (1935)
“Notes for a Poem”
“The Gyroscope”
“The Lynchings of Jesus”
“Sundays, They Sleep Late”
“Citation for Horace Gregory”
“The Lover”
U.S. 1 (1938)
“The Road”
“West Virginia”
“Statement: Phillippa Allen”
“Gauley Bridge”
“The Face of the Dam: Vivian Jones”
“Praise of the Committee”
“Mearl Blankenship”
“Absalom”
“The Disease”
“George Robinson: Blues”
“Juanita Tinsley”
“The Doctors”
“The Cornfield”
“Arthur Peyton”
“Alloy”
“Power”
“The Dam”
“The Disease: After-Effects”
“The Bill”
“The Book the Dead”
“More of a Corpse Than a Woman”
A TURNING WIND (1939)
“Target Practice”
“Correspondences”
“Paper Anniversaries”
“Gibbs”
“Ann Burlak”
WAKE ISLAND (1942)
BEAST IN VIEW (1944)
“The Minotaur”
“Long Past Moncada”
“The Soul and Body of John Brown”
THE GREEN WAVE (1948)
“This Place in the Ways”
ORPHEUS (1949)
ELEGIES (1949)
BODY OF WAKING (1958)
WATERLILY FIRE (1962)
THE SPEED OF DARKNESS (1968)
“What I See”
“For My Son”
“Poem”
“Kathe Kollwitz”
“The Speed of Darkness”
BREAKING OPEN (1973)
THE GATES (1976)
“Work, for the Day Is Coming”
May 30, 2017
Powerful, profound and beautiful lyrical verse. She is called a modernist, whatever that means, but her sense of meter and rhyme and sound are highly determined and musical.
I have a very narrow awareness of what has been done, and I am in no way a widely read scholar of poetry, but I will go out on a limb and say that she is probably the best American poet of the 20th century. I have never read anything that comes close to what I have found here. Nothing. Nowhere. Period.
Grab it while you can, lend it to your friends, because this stock is going into the stratosphere. If she doesn't end up in the pantheon of western culture, I'll eat my hat.
I have a very narrow awareness of what has been done, and I am in no way a widely read scholar of poetry, but I will go out on a limb and say that she is probably the best American poet of the 20th century. I have never read anything that comes close to what I have found here. Nothing. Nowhere. Period.
Grab it while you can, lend it to your friends, because this stock is going into the stratosphere. If she doesn't end up in the pantheon of western culture, I'll eat my hat.
October 27, 2007
i struggled with this. she is worth the fight.
"Lately having escaped three-kinded death
Not by evasion but by coming through
I celebrate what may be true beginning.
But new begun am most without resource
Stupid and stopped. How do the newborn grow?
I am of them. Freshness has taken our hearts;
Pain strips us to the source, infants of further life
Waiting for childhood as we wait for form.....
Nothing I wrote is what I must see written,
Nothing I did is what I now need done."
"Lately having escaped three-kinded death
Not by evasion but by coming through
I celebrate what may be true beginning.
But new begun am most without resource
Stupid and stopped. How do the newborn grow?
I am of them. Freshness has taken our hearts;
Pain strips us to the source, infants of further life
Waiting for childhood as we wait for form.....
Nothing I wrote is what I must see written,
Nothing I did is what I now need done."
May 23, 2007
I admit I didnt read the whole thing, but wow for what I did read!
October 1, 2007
she's a really amazing poet. check her out.
she writes about real things.
she writes about real things.
December 30, 2007
recommended by malena. i've really come to love her work.
February 22, 2012
Book of the Dead is amazing. If you don't read anything else by Muriel Rukeyser, read Book of the Dead (found in this collection).
June 27, 2014
Wonderful poems by "the best poet of her exact generation".
April 18, 2015
[Note: I've only read The Book of the Dead as of yet (originally published in U.S. 1 in 1938)]
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews