How Shall We Tell Each Other of the Poet?: The Life and Writing of Muriel Rukeyser (Hardcover)

by Anne F. Herzog (Editor), Janet E. Kaufman (Editor) "It's very hard for me to begin talking about Muriel Rukeyser, because I never know where to end..." (more)
Key Phrases: unverifiable fact, thinking fathers, buried life, Muriel Rukeyser, The Book of the Dead, Gauley Bridge (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal
Even if Muriel Rukeyser never attained the status of Whitman or Dickinson, the poets Adrienne Rich compares her to in one of these essays, she was an American original. She was less a marquee poet than a force of nature, an imposing woman who gave herself to a variety of aesthetic positions, political causes, and passionate friendships and antagonisms. (Gerald Stern recalls being taunted by an audience member when he and Rukeyser read together once and starting to defend himself by saying, "I don't want to be mean," only to hear Rukeyser whisper, "Be mean, be mean.") Herzog and Kaufman, English professors at West Chester University and the University of Utah, respectively, gather writings by 37 Rukeyser fans; a number of these pieces are poems, the most luminous of which is Richard Howard's "A Sibyl of 1979," in which he describes being given a computer that had baffled Rukeyser, finding in it some draft phrases she had left there, and making them into his own tribute to her. For larger public and academic libraries.ADavid Kirby, Florida State Univ., Tallahassee
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Rukeyser (1913^-80) was shunned by the academy for the freedom of her thinking, her humanitarianism, and her unabashedly Whitmanesque poetic voice. As Denise Levertov, one of the nearly 40 poets and literary scholars whose considerations of and tributes to Rukeyser are collected here, writes, Rukeyser "consistently fused lyricism and overt social and political concern." Reginald Gibbons, another insightful admirer, observes that "Rukeyser aimed not at grace but at inquiry and witness and re-imagining." A writer, scholar, single parent, pilot, and activist, Rukeyser linked art to politics and science, and glided with ease from poetry to biography to children's books to translation to literary criticism, a fluidity that endeared her to poets but vexed critics and led to a vanishing of her works like that of an endangered species. But editors Herzog and Kaufman and contributors such as Gerald Stern, Adrienne Rich, and Richard Howard have set out to redress this neglect, and Rukeyser does, indeed, emerge from these pages, vibrant, defiant, gifted, and embracing. Donna Seaman

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan (August 21, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312213204
• ISBN-13: 978-0312213206
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.8 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,633,562 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars inspiring chronicle of an inspiring life, December 28, 2001

By	Liza (DC Metropolitan Area (USA)) - See all my reviews

This review is from: How Shall We Tell Each Other of the Poet?: The Life and Writing of Muriel Rukeyser (Paperback)

I should preface this by telling you that I am fanatically devoted to Muriel Rukeyser's work and so may present a somewhat extreme perspective. As a high-schooler, it is one of my deepest hopes that my generation will awaken to this amazing and underappreciated woman. As Muriel Rukeyser's poems are monuments, so is her life itself. She was a tremendous force for artistic vision and social conscience. As a reflection of such a life, this book could hardly go wrong, and it is indeed intensely thought-provoking and inspiring.

I found the organization of the book to be effective on the whole. Rather than a single narrative, it is a collection of writings from a range of people including Adrienne Rich, and Muriel Rukeyser's son, William Rukeyser. It's divided into five parts: 1. Poetics and Vision; 2. Activism and Teaching; 3. The Body, Feminist Critique, and the Poet as Mother; 4. Poetry of Witness; 5. Remembering Muriel Rukeyser. For the most part the divisions seemed somewhat arbitrary, but of course dividing a life into such categories is a near impossible task. I enjoyed the mix of literary critique with personal stories. There were also a surprisingly large number of poems about/inspired by Muriel Rukeyser, and these were of mixed quality. On the whole, the book admittedly had it's hits and it's misses, but it was absolutely worth it for the hits. I would recommend it to anyone interested in learning more about Muriel Rukeyser (and that should, of course, be everyone).