U.S. 1

by Muriel Rukeyser

Muriel Rukeyser w przełomowym tomie poetyckim z 1938 roku postawiła sobie za cel wypracowanie formy, która pozwoliłaby wyrazić sprzeciw wobec niesprawiedliwości społecznych. Otwierający U.S. 1 cykl Księga umarłych – najsłynniejsze dzieło tej amerykańskiej pisarki – w nowatorski sposób dokumentuje konsekwencje katastrofy przemysłowej w Gauley Bridge w Wirginii Zachodniej: zatrudnieni do drążenia tunelu robotnicy ze względu na złe warunki pracy zaczęli zapadać na pylicę krzemową. Stwierdzono czterysta siedemdziesiąt sześć przypadków śmiertelnych, lecz niektóre szacunki mówią o ponad tysiącu ofiar. Rukeyser komponuje wiersze z dokumentów, relacji ustnych, listów czy stenogramów. Spisuje poezję świadectwa, przywracając głos tym, którzy nie mogli się wypowiedzieć.

U.S. 1 – pierwsza książka Rukeyser ukazująca się w języku polskim, w przekładzie Marty Koronkiewicz i z posłowiem Kacpra Bartczaka – jest ważnym osiągnięciem amerykańskiej literatury modernistycznej. Autorka pokazała, jak pisać po Ezrze Poundzie i T.S. Eliocie, oraz stworzyła oryginalną dykcję, do której odnosić się będą twórcy tacy jak William Carlos Williams czy Adrienne Rich.

Genres: Poetry

147 pages

First published January 1, 1938

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

[Jakub Horbów · Rating 5 out of 5]

V Tom Wygłosów oddany poezji Rukesyer rozpoczyna się wspaniałą serią wierszy-reportaży z Wirginii Zachodniej pod tytułem Księga umarlych. Autorka udziela w nim głosu ofiarom amerykańskiej demokracji, kapitalizmu, postępu, czy po prostu wielkiej społecznej niesprawiedliwości dajac im sprzeciw w sposob arcydzielny. Jest to zdecydowanie główna i najważniejsza część U.S. 1, gdzie nowojorska poetka podnosi problem katastrofy przemysłowej przez którą ludzie masowo chorowali na pylicę krzemową podczas drążenia tunelu w Gauley Bridge.

Po tych zachwytach kolejne wiersze nie zrobiły już na mnie podobnego wrażenia, jednak tomik kończy się w równie mocny sposób, co rozpoczyna dwoma poematami Rejs i Morze Śródziemne o świecie w przeddzień wielkiej wojny i już w trakcie tej "mniejszej" doświadczonej bezpośrednio przez sama pisarkę w trakcie Hiszpańskiej wojny domowej.

Wspaniała lektura do obowiązkowych powrotów.

[Alicja Bagińska · Rating 5 out of 5]

czytałam w przekładzie Marty Koronkiewicz i bardzo polecam

[Shoshana · Rating 4 out of 5]

My yearly poetry book, also the second book within my "The Collected Poems of Muriel Rukeyser" collection. This book contains her famous 1938 poem series, "The Book of the Dead,” about miners in West Virginia who sued their employer, Rinehart and Dennis Company, a contractor for Union Carbide, for the deadly conditions they worked in while drilling a tunnel under Gauley Mountain. The company’s criminal negligence and the large number of resulting casualties became popularly known as the “Hawks Nest Incident” or the “Hawks Nest Tunnel Disaster.” In her book, Rukeyser combines lightly edited texts of the testimony given by the miners during the trial with her own descriptions of the people and the land. The comparisons to workers during Covid are intense, and this was a difficult read at times because of that, but very much worth it. One individual poem cannot convey the poem series, its power is in the wholeness of it. The next section was a group of shorter poems, and then the third section was two long poems about two sea voyages, both haunting in their own ways. The first one was about a cruise ship that can't find a place to dock because every port is either a war or has an epidemic or minefield, and the passengers and crew get increasingly distraught. I really liked how weird and surreal it was and it definitely confirmed my resolve to never take a cruise. The second was about a ship carrying people away from Spain during the Spanish Civil War. I'm looking forward to reading the subsequent books in this collection, as well as more about Rukeyser, my favorite poet.

[Anna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Przejmujące historie o tragediach, na które ludzie skazali innych ludzi z chciwości. Ludzie zmumifikowani białym pyłem jeszcze za życia, doprowadzeni do szaleństwa przez wojnę, martwi, choć wciąż oddychający

[Pytaniazsali · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rozmowa o polskim przekładzie U.S. 1:

https://open.spotify.com/episode/6B01...

[luk zur · Rating 5 out of 5]

Najlepsze

[Craig Werner · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rukeyser's in contention for the unwanted title of "most underrated American poet of the 20th century." Published in 1938, U.S. 1 deserves a place alongside the novels of Steinbeck, Dos Passos, and Richard Wright on the shelf of politically-engaged masterpieces of the 30s and early 40s. Writing in direct response to the Spanish Civil War and the shadow of the coming World War, Rukeyser constructs a triptych juxtaposing historical, political and personal experience. The first section, "The Book of the Dead" is a Zola-esque engagement with the building of a tunnel as part of a dam building project in Virginia. She chronicles the medical impact of the pure silica on the miners, the political machinations which allowed the corporations involved to deny responsibility, and orchestrates a chorus of voices from within the miners' community. Her clear awareness of the position of black miners is particularly welcome. The final section of the book, "Two Voyages," consists of two long poems, one based on the flight of athletes participating in the "Anti-Facist Olympics" forced to flee Spain at the start of the Civil War, the other a long allegory stressing the absence of any place of refuge in the face of the coming storm. Both of those sections are in a sense well-done period-pieces grounded in the rhetoric left at a very specific political moment.

Where US 1 rises to a higher level is in the central section, "Night-Music." Anticipating the poetry of Adrienne Rich, who has acknowledged Rukeyser as a major influence, the poems in this section illuminate the struggles and contradictions of individuals trying to live their lives in good political/existential faith in the midst of a nightmare. In "Burning Bush," Rukeyser writes: "all horrors enter all beds to purify/ the critical spirit in a city of change." As true today as it was in 1938.

My favorite poems in US 1 are "Power" (from "The Book of the Dead"), "Burning Bush" and "Course" (both from "Night-Music), but there's a long list of good ones: "Praise of the Community," "George Robinson Blues," "The Cornfield," "The Dam," "The Book of the Dead," "A Flashing Cliff," "Girl at the Play," "Trophies," "Panacea," "Driveway," and "Outpost."

Rukeyser's limit as a poet is that her sense of the language, while pointed and precise, rarely rises to the sort of musical brilliance of Rich, Frost, Yeats or Gwendolyn Brooks at their best. She'll be poet number four (following Allen Ginsberg, Gary Snyder and Robert Frost) in my "Reading the Complete Works" project.

[Joe Sacksteder · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is my favorite book of poetry. Rukeyser is probably my favorite poet. Except sometimes she has a tendency to poet-ify sentences by removing articles, conjunctions, etc. which makes them sound like pretty grocery lists. "The Book of the Dead" would probably qualify as one of the only truly IMPORTANT poems I've ever read.

[Whitney · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very mixed -the primary series of poems ("The Book of the Dead") about silicosis was interesting, then I snoozed through the middle of the book, until the last two poems, the deeply weird and totally different "The Cruise" and then "Mediterranean."