Books by Muriel Rukeyser
The Essential Muriel Rukeyser: Poems
The definitive edition of selected work from a poet whose influence continues to be widely felt today, introduced by Natasha Trethewey
Engaging 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.
Copies
No copies available.
Out of Silence: Selected Poems
Out of Silence is a poetry book encompassing the contradictions of twentieth-century America.
Copies
-
$21.00
Elegies
An elegant relaunch of Muriel Rukeyser’s Elegies, previously available only in a limited edition, celebrates the centennial of her birth
"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.”
Copies
No copies available.
Savage Coast (Lost & Found Elsewhere)
The poet’s newly discovered novel of reporting on the Spanish Civil War “is both an absorbing read and an important contribution to 20th-century history” (Publishers Weekly).
As a young reporter in 1936, the pioneering poet and political activist 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—both in its lyrical prose and its frank depictions of violence and sexuality—that it was never published in her lifetime. Recently discovered in her archive, Feminist Press finally makes this important work available to the public.
Savage Coast charts a young American woman’s 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 exploration 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.
Copies
No copies available.
Muriel Rukeyser: Selected Poems: (American Poets Project #9)
The poetry of Muriel Rukeyser confronts the turbulent currents of 20th-century history, as it explores with depth and honesty the realms of politics, sexuality, mythic imagination, technological change, and family life. She 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 refused to compartmentalize herself or her work,” writes editor Adrienne Rich, “claiming her right to intellect and sexuality, poetry and science, Marxism and myth, activism and motherhood, theory and vision. . . . She was one of the great integrators, seeing the fragmentary world of modernity not as irretrievably broken, but in need of societal and emotional repair.” This new selection provides an indispensable introduction to her adventurous and prolific work.
About the American Poets Project
Elegantly designed in compact editions, printed on acid-free paper, and textually authoritative, the American Poets Project makes available the full range of the American poetic accomplishment, selected and introduced by today’s most discerning poets and critics.
Copies
No copies available.
Willard Gibbs: The Whole Is Simpler than Its Parts
Marginalian Editions presents a groundbreaking poet’s biography of the forgotten scientist who founded physical chemistry, shaping much of the 20th century―and an ingenious, expansive treatise on American creativity, character, and remembrance.
Josiah Willard Gibbs (1839–1903) was an American visionary whose work shaped a century of science by bridging classical mechanics and quantum physics. A kindly and shy bachelor who lectured at Yale in relative obscurity for more than thirty years, he single-handedly created the field of physical chemistry without ever completing a single experiment. Gibbs’s visionary work enabled future scientists to predict what states a substance can assume and under what conditions―the implications for industry, agriculture, and warfare were vast. Hailed by Einstein as “the greatest mind in American history,” Gibbs remained essentially unknown.
To acclaimed poet Muriel Rukeyser, Gibbs “lived closer than any inventor, any poet, any scientific worker in pure imagination to the life of the inventive and organizing spirit in America.” Rukeyser’s thoroughly researched and lyrical tribute to Gibbs is much more than a biography: it is an alchemical compound of philosophy, history, ethics, and literature writ large. It is the story of a country, a century, a global epoch of scientific creativity that would color every realm of human imagination and aspiration, from poetry to politics.
Copies
-
$32.00
The Book of the Dead
by Douglas Preston, Lincoln Child, Muriel Rukeyser
A brilliant FBI agent, rotting away in a high security prison for a murder he did not commit.
His brilliant, psychotic brother, about to perpetrate a horrific crime.
A young woman with an extraordinary past, on the edge of a violent breakdown.
An ancient Egyptian tomb about to be unveiled at a celebrity-studded New York gala, an enigmatic curse released.
Memento Mori
Copies
No copies available.
The Book of the Dead
by Douglas Preston, Lincoln Child, Muriel Rukeyser
Written in response to the Hawk’s Nest Tunnel disaster of 1931 in Gauley Bridge, West Virginia, The Book of the Dead is an important part of West Virginia’s cultural heritage and a powerful account of one of the worst industrial catastrophes in American history. The poems collected here investigate the roots of a tragedy that killed hundreds of workers, most of them African American. They are a rare engagement with the overlap between race and environment in Appalachia.
Published for the first time alongside photographs by Nancy Naumburg, who accompanied Rukeyser to Gauley Bridge in 1936, this edition of The Book of the Dead includes an introduction by Catherine Venable Moore, whose writing on the topic has been anthologized in Best American Essays.
Copies
No copies available.
The Orgy: An Irish Journey of Passion and Transformation (Paris Press)
Muriel Rukeyser's account of Ireland's Puck Fair ― the last existing pagan festival of the goat ― captures this wild and lush experience and tradition. With a preface by Sharon Olds.
Those who have traveled know the experience of extended time and sharpened perception. Muriel Rukeyser's account of Puck Fair ― the last existing pagan festival of the goat ― captures just that state of consciousness. Set in County Kerry, Ireland, The Orgy evokes this great American poet's journey of sensual and psychological transformation in the midst of a lush account of Irish culture and tradition. With a preface by Sharon Olds.
Copies
No copies available.