Resources

Maxwell said: There is no more powerful way to introduce knowledge to the mind than … as many different ways as we can, wrenching the mind away from the symbols to the objects and from the objects back to the symbols. Maxwell said: I have been striving all my life to be free of the yoke of Cartesian co-ordinates. I found such an instrument in quaternions. Do I need quaternions to talk about light? Alas, the square of quaternions is negative. But Gibbs's vectors, uncouth seemingly, work well, in any dimension, with a very great capability for interpreting space relations. [...]

MURIEL RUKEYSER: LEARNING TO BREATHE UNDER WATER 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 have asked myself: how are my [...]

This is a remix of Muriel Rukeyser's "Waterlily Fire" created by EMU Creative Writing student Kellie Nadler. Download Audio: M4A

This is a remix of Muriel Rukeyser's poem "The Return" created by EMU Creative Writing student Ned Randolph. Download Audio: MP3

This is a Penn Sound PoemTalk, a 30-min. discussion of Muriel Rukeyser's "Ballad of Orange and Grape" with Amy Kind, Mytili Jagannathan, and David Abel, organized and introduced by the founder of PennSound and PoemTalk, Al Filreis.

MURIEL: IN MEMORIAM 1 You left us in FebruaryYou left us two days before Valentine’s. In the morning I heard myself say, “No more.Do not call me anymore.” I listened to your lifetime. In the afternoon I was warned: “Saturnis slipping into Libra. Do not alteryour alliances. Mars is conjunct Jupiter.” You were the teacher I never hadThe poet who wrote my poems before I thought of them. In the evening I stared at the eastern skyand dared the two spots of light to harm me. December wrapped children have the secret sealed in their bones:the earth does not die [...]

Order The Book of the Dead from West Virginia University Press.