Kirjahaku

The definitive edition of selected work from a poet whose influence continues to be widely felt today, introduced by Natasha TretheweyEngaging closely with the violence, oppression, and injustice that she witnessed in her lifetime, Muriel Rukeyser was one of the seminal poets of the mid-twentieth century. Closely informed by issues relating to equality, social justice, feminism, and Judaism, her impassioned poetry was often seen as a mode of social protest, but it was also heralded for its deep emotional impact; its personal perspective; forthright discussion of the female experience, particularly sex and single parenthood at a time when these topics were largely taboo; and its wide-ranging exploration of genre and form. As Adrienne Rich wrote: "Muriel Rukeyser's poetry is unequalled in the twentieth-century United States...She pushes us...to enlarge our sense of what poetry is about in the world, and of the place of feelings and memory in politics."The Essential Muriel Rukeyser represents the curation of Rukeyser's most enduring and urgent work, gathered in one volume that spans the many decades of her life and career, and with an introduction from Natasha Trethewey, one of our most important contemporary poets.

Cowinner of the MLA Prize for Bibliographical or Archival Scholarship The Muriel Rukeyser Era makes available for the first time a range of Muriel Rukeyser's prose, a rich and diverse archive of political, social, and aesthetic writings. Eric Keenaghan and Rowena Kennedy-Epstein assemble a selection of unpublished and out-of-print texts, demonstrating the diversity, brilliance, and possibilities of mid-twentieth-century women's intellectual life and sociopolitical engagement. Although primarily known as a poet, Rukeyser produced an expansive and influential body of nonfiction and critical writings. Reflective of a deeply committed thinker, her accessible but philosophically complex prose—including essays, lectures, radio scripts, stories, and reviews—addresses issues related to racial, gender, and class justice, war and war crimes; the prison-industrial complex, Jewish culture and diaspora, motherhood, literature, music, cinema, and translation. Many of the selected texts have been forgotten, have fallen out of print, or were never previously published because of conservative Cold War political and gender orthodoxies. The Muriel Rukeyser Era offers new insight into Rukeyser's radical and strikingly contemporary vision for the role of the writer—especially the woman writer. This selection reveals the centrality of feminism, antifascism, and antiracism to her thinking and thus affirms the resonance and urgency of her work today.

Cowinner of the MLA Prize for Bibliographical or Archival Scholarship The Muriel Rukeyser Era makes available for the first time a range of Muriel Rukeyser's prose, a rich and diverse archive of political, social, and aesthetic writings. Eric Keenaghan and Rowena Kennedy-Epstein assemble a selection of unpublished and out-of-print texts, demonstrating the diversity, brilliance, and possibilities of mid-twentieth-century women's intellectual life and sociopolitical engagement. Although primarily known as a poet, Rukeyser produced an expansive and influential body of nonfiction and critical writings. Reflective of a deeply committed thinker, her accessible but philosophically complex prose—including essays, lectures, radio scripts, stories, and reviews—addresses issues related to racial, gender, and class justice, war and war crimes; the prison-industrial complex, Jewish culture and diaspora, motherhood, literature, music, cinema, and translation. Many of the selected texts have been forgotten, have fallen out of print, or were never previously published because of conservative Cold War political and gender orthodoxies. The Muriel Rukeyser Era offers new insight into Rukeyser's radical and strikingly contemporary vision for the role of the writer—especially the woman writer. This selection reveals the centrality of feminism, antifascism, and antiracism to her thinking and thus affirms the resonance and urgency of her work today.

"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.”

"At first "Savage Coast" is a train-of-fools comedy; later, it's a cross-cultural love story Hemingway would have envied for its suddenness." --"New York Times Book Review" "Rejected by her publisher in 1937, poet Rukeyser's newly discovered autobiographical novel is both an absorbing read and an important contribution to 20th-century history.... Ironically, the factors that led to the novel's rejection--Rukeyser's avant-garde impressionistic prose style, alternating with realistic scenes of brutal death and a few descriptions of sexual congress--are what make the book appealing today."--"Publisher's Weekly" As a young reporter in 1936, Muriel Rukeyser traveled to Barcelona to witness the first days of the Spanish Civil War. She turned this experience into an autobiographical novel so forward thinking for its time that it was never published. Recently discovered in her archive, this lyrical work charts her political and sexual awakening as she witnesses the popular front resistance to the fascist coup and falls in love with a German political exile who joins the first international brigade.Rukeyser's narrative is a modernist investigation into the psychology of violence, activism, and desire; a documentary text detailing the start of the war; and a testimony to those who fought and died for freedom and justice during the first major battle against European fascism.Muriel Rukeyser (1913-1980) was a prolific American writer and political activist, influencing generations of poets including Anne Sexton, Adrienne Rich, Sharon Olds, and Alice Walker, to name a few. She wrote on the Scottsboro trial in Alabama, the Spanish Civil War, the Vietnam War, and the imprisonment of poet Kim Chi-Ha in South Korea. She was one of the few modernist writers to champion social justice issues, showing the place of memory and feelings in politics. Rukeyser's centenary will be celebrated in 2013.Rowena Kennedy-Epstein is a PhD candidate in English at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.

The poetry of Muriel Rukeyser (1913-80) confronts the turbulent currents of modern history as it explores with depth and honesty the realms of politics, sexuality, mythic imagination, technological change and family life. Rukeyser was a social activist of unwavering commitment, a tireless experimenter who opened fresh forms and fresh subject-matter in modern American poetry, and a writer who was constantly testing her own limits in a life's work of extraordinary scope. She held a visionary belief in the human capacity to create social change through language, and earned an international reputation as a powerful voice against enforced silences of all kind, against the violence of war, poverty and racism. Edited and introduced by Adrienne Rich, this new selection provides an indispensable introduction to the adventurous and prolific work of one of the most significant and influential American poets of the 20th century.