A Muriel Rukeyser Reader
It's easy to see from this collection, which spans 1935-76, why many regarded elements of Rukeyser's work as beyond or before her time. By combining and recombining images of political leaders, body memory, physicists, sexuality, and more, the poet created a personal dreamscape, a cinema verit{‚}e full of jump cuts intersplicing poets, painters, and philosophers that presaged the age of MTV and poetry videos. Underpinning the densely worked surfaces, however, are the poet's recurrent musings on how and why we live, our relationships to ourselves, our physical bodies, the laws of gravity, the nature of fear, and the evolution of the poetic image. In "Letter to the Front" (fromBeast in View, 1944), Rukeyser encapsulates her view of life as a woman, a Jew, and an artist: "The gift is torment. Not alone the still / Torture, isolation; or torture of the flesh. / That may come also. But the accepting wish, / The whole and fertile spirit as guarantee / For every human freedom, suffering to be free, / Daring to live for the impossible." She constantly reminds us, "Exchange is creation."Whitney Scott--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.