Breaking Open

Witness, Fear, and Conversation in the Poetry of Muriel Rukeyser By Chelsea Lonsdale If the poem is a meeting place, it cannot be dismantled into disciplines. It cannot be disassembled into individual parts that, on their own, are worth more or less than what is possible when they combine. Poetry is the meeting place in which all of the parts of one’s own self, as well as the many identities that come together in poems, are significantly greater than what they were alone: interplay. Rukeyser’s poetry emphasizes the interaction between parts, the complexities of relationships between people, action, and material. [...]