Muriel Rukeyser (December 15, 1913 – February 12, 1980) 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.
Read more about Muriel Rukeyser: Early Life, Activism and Writing, In Other Media, Works
Famous quotes by muriel rukeyser:
“Speak to me. Take my hand. What are you now?
I will tell you all. I will conceal nothing.”
—Muriel Rukeyser (1913–1980)
“Erasing the failure of weeks with level fingers,
she sleeks the fine hair, combing: ‘You’ll look fine tomorrow!”
—Muriel Rukeyser (1913–1980)
“Came to Ajanta cave, the painted space of the breast,
the real world where everything is complete,
there are no shadows, the forms of incompleteness,
The great cloak blows in the light, rider and horse arrive,
the shoulders turn and every gift is made.”
—Muriel Rukeyser (1913–1980)
“I am haunted by interrupted acts,
introspective as a leper, enchanted
by a repulsive clew,
a gross and fugitive movement of the limbs.
Is this the love that shook the lights to flame?”
—Muriel Rukeyser (1913–1980)