9781931082587

Muriel Rukeyser (1913–80) published her first book—the powerfully experimental Theory of Flight—at age twenty-two, and went on to an adventurous and prolific career as poet, translator, and political activist. Her expansive energies sought a poetry in which politics, geography, sexuality, mythology, and autobiography could find fused and fluid expression. From her early, brilliantly cinematic Poem Out of Childhood” through excerpts from her long wartime Letter to the Front” to her late Resurrection of the Right Side,” written after her stroke, this selection represents the many sides and selves of a major poet.

Adrienne Rich is the author of nearly twenty volumes of poetry and the recipient of a National Book Award.

Introduction

xiii

from Theory of Flight (1935)

Poem Out of Childhood

1

(4)

Effort at Speech Between Two People

5

(2)

Notes for a Poem

7

(2)

Sand-Quarry with Moving Figures

9

(1)

Three Sides of a Coin

10

(3)

This House, This Country

13

(2)

The Structure of the Plane

15

(8)

Study in a Late Subway

23

(2)

from U.S. 1 (1938)

from The Book of the Dead

The Road

25

(2)

Statement: Philippa Allen

27

(2)

Gauley Bridge

29

(2)

The Disease

31

(2)

The Cornfield

33

(3)

The Dam

36

(4)

The Book of the Dead

40

(6)

Girl at the Play

46

(1)

Homage to Literature

47

(1)

More of a Corpse Than a Woman

47

(2)

Woman and Emblems

49

(3)

from A Turning Wind (1939)

First Elegy. Rotten Lake

52

(4)

Third Elegy. The Fear of Form

56

(4)

Fifth Elegy. A Turning Wind

60

(7)

Reading Time: 1 Minute 26 Seconds

67

(1)

Tree of Days

68

(1)

Paper Anniversary

69

(3)

From the Duck-Pond to the Carousel

72

(1)

Judith

73

(2)

from Lives

Gibbs

75

(4)

Ann Burlak

79

(6)

from Beast in View (1944)

Ajanta

85

(6)

Child in the Great Wood

91

(1)

Darkness Music

92

(1)

Drunken Girl

92

(1)

The Minotaur

93

(1)

Gift-Poem

94

(5)

Leg in a Plaster Cast

99

(1)

Bubble of Air

100

(1)

from Letter to the Front

I. "Women and poets see the truth arrive"

101

(1)

IV. Sestina

101

(2)

VII. "To be a Jew In the twentieth century"

103

(1)

IX. "Among all the waste..."

103

(3)

from The Green Wave (1948)

Eyes of Night-Time

106

(1)

Salamander

107

(1)

Green Limits

107

(2)

Foghorn in Horror

109

(1)

Then I Saw What the Calling Was

109

(1)

from Nine Poems for the Unborn Child

II. "They came to me and said..."

110

(1)

VII. "You will enter the world..."

111

from Body of Waking (1958)

F.O.M.

112

(1)

"Long Enough"

113

(1)

Pouring Milk Away

114

(1)

The Sixth Night: Waking

114

(1)

from Waterlily Fire (1962)

Waterlily Fire

115

(8)

from The Speed of Darkness (1968)

The Poem as Mask: Orpheus

123

(1)

The Conjugation of the Paramecium

124

(1)

Double Dialogue

125

(1)

Orgy

126

(1)

What I See

127

(1)

Gift

127

(1)

Cries from Chiapas

128

(1)

For My Son

129

(1)

Poem

130

(1)

The Power of Suicide

131

(1)

Bunk Johnson Blowing

132

(1)

What They Said

133

(1)

The Backside of the Academy

133

(3)

The Outer Banks

136

(7)

Kathe Kollwitz

143

(7)

from Breaking Open (1973)

Despisals

150

(1)

Looking at Each Other

151

(1)

Waiting for Icarus

152

(1)

In Her Burning

153

(1)

Myth

154

(1)

A Simple Experiment

155

(1)

Ballad of Orange and Grape

156

(2)

From a Play: Publisher's Song

158

(1)

from The Gates (1976)

St. Roach

159

(1)

Painters

160

(1)

Ms. Lot

161

(1)

Resurrection of the Right Side

161

(1)

The Wards

162

(1)

Destruction of Grief

163

(1)

Burnishing, Oakland

164

(4)

Biographical Note

168

(2)

Note on the Texts

170

(1)

Notes

171

(5)

Index of Titles and First Lines

176

What is included with this book?

The New copy of this book will include any supplemental materials advertised. Please check the title of the book to determine if it should include any access cards, study guides, lab manuals, CDs, etc.

The Used, Rental and eBook copies of this book are not guaranteed to include any supplemental materials. Typically, only the book itself is included. This is true even if the title states it includes any access cards, study guides, lab manuals, CDs, etc.

Amazon no longer offers textbook rentals. We do!

Amazon no longer offers textbook rentals. We do!

We're the #1 textbook rental company. Let us show you why.

Muriel Rukeyser : Selected Poems

1931082588

Summary

Author Biography

Table of Contents

Supplemental Materials

Rewards Program