Muriel Rukeyser’s Selected Poems
“in the wreaths of time to us what love
may reach us in the streets
the books the years
what wreaths of love may touch our dreams,
what skeins of fine response may clothe our flesh”
Beautiful poetry narrates to us the history, sings to us the present and prepare us for the future. In uncertain times such as these, poetry acts both as the mirror and the balm. I don’t consider Art as an escape, contrary to popular opinion. I believe Art is the lens which helps us see things. It does not necessarily transport us to another world, it very much grounds us to the present one, nudges us to empathize and understand the Other. Art, and especially poetry like the ones that American poet Muriel Rukeyser wrote readies us to face unpleasant circumstances that we helped in creating- via our action, via our silence. Poetry is the stark realization of human action.
Muriel Rukeyser wrote of war, of women, of cities and countryside, urban landscapes, about the idea of progression, renovation and about the notion of destruction that lies in the very heart of human civilisation. Even as she is considered a feminist and activist of her time by critics I realize that she somehow could stay detached from her surrounding and yet inked just enough to talk about the rights and wrongs, about the history and the world’s participation in making that history.
Many of her poems are puzzling. As urbane themes juxtaposed with myths of Icarus and Orpheus, they simultaneously depict her love for modern technology, history, science and culture. Extremely sensitive to the changing political and cultural landscape around her, Muriel Rukeyser as Adrienne Rich puts it understood “how the individual life, even if unconscious or apathetic to the fact, is shaped in history and collectivity.”
“‘The sage answers:
“ I speak to you. You speak to me. Is that fragile?’”
