Essays

Presented at the 2013 Muriel Rukeyser Centenary Symposium, March 14-16, 2013, Eastern Michigan University As we discuss the iterations of power revealed in Muriel Rukeyser’s “The Book of the Dead,” I think it is important to consider the power that the poem itself represents. That is, Muriel Rukeyser’s authorial power. In Rukeyser’s documentary Poem of Witness we find that she incorporates real people and their actual testimonies. While this is a fantastic way to give a voice to the subjugated victims of the disaster at Hawk’s Nest Tunnel; I wonder whether the artistic liberty Rukeyser takes with the words of [...]

Presented at the 2013 Muriel Rukeyser Centenary Symposium, March 14-16, 2013, Eastern Michigan University Muriel Rukeyser constructs women as sources of power in The Book of the Dead.1 The prominent female voices in the poem come from two women, Philippa Allen and Mrs. Jones. Both Philippa Allen and Mrs. Jones were actual women who were involved in the fallout from the disaster at Gauley Bridge. These two women are implicated in this event through both history and Rukeyser’s poem. The third poem “Statement: Philippa Allen” is drawn entirely from the transcript of Philippa Allen’s testimony at the hearing before the [...]

Presented at the 2013 Muriel Rukeyser Centenary Symposium, March 14-16, 2013, Eastern Michigan University The Book of the Dead explores the corruption of the body that echoes the corruption of the land as humans attempt to harness power and take control of the natural world. However, another corruption shows itself when we meet Dr. Goldwater, brought in to testify at the hearing. My first reading of the poem took place in a near void of knowledge regarding the Hawks Nest disaster, and I didn’t see that Dr. Goldwater is on the Union Carbide payroll, compensated for his testimony; all I [...]

Alicia Ostriker's Keynote Speech at the Muriel Rukeyser Centenary Symposium, March 16, 2013. There are... two kinds of reaching in poetry, one based on the document, the evidence itself; the other informed by the unverifiable fact, as in sex, dream, the parts of life in which we dive deep and sometimes—with strength of expression and skill and luck—reach that place where things are shared and we all recognize the secrets. (Jane Cooper, How shall we tell Each Other of the Poet, p. 6) Unverifiable fact...the parts of life where we dive deep. I cherish this quote, this image. For I [...]