- Muriel Rukeyser and Other Writers Posted in: Ruke Blog - Posted on May 19, 2014 by Catherine Gander In just a few days, I will have the pleasure of chairing a panel at the American Literature Association’s annual conference at Washington, DC. The panel, organised by Elisabeth Däumer (herself a force of intellectual connectivity of the sort Rukeyser celebrated) will bring together five established and emerging Rukeyser scholars including myself and Professor Däumer: Rowena Kennedy-Epstein, whose diligent scholarship recently brought Rukeyser’s ‘lost novel’ Savage Coast to light and publication; Laura Passin, whose work on the politico-aesthetic strains of contemporary American poetry traces valuable lines of influence to the lyrical, subjective… ...Continue Reading
- On the centenary of Muriel Rukeyser’s birth: the lives of a poet Posted in: Ruke Blog - Posted on December 14, 2013 by Catherine Gander This post, in celebration of the centenary of Muriel Rukeyser’s birth (15.12.13), is a more personal one than my last. I want to evoke, as far as I can, a feeling as well as an understanding of the enormous influence Rukeyser has had on the lives of those who knew her, and those who have read her. Encountering her work, whether it is her poetry, her prose biographies, her dramatic scripts, or her essays, is invariably an intellectually invigorating experience. The act of reading becomes, with a Rukeyser text, simultaneously an act… ...Continue Reading
- ‘Islands’: Dragging Our Heads Back Posted in: Ruke Blog, Throat of These Hours (play) - Posted on December 14, 2013 by Marian Evans The latest draft of the Throat of These Hours radio play, now with a rigorous reader, was hard and slow. I had to reduce – drop storylines, drop characters, drop themes, drop dialogue – and distill. Reduce and distill again. Sometimes I lost Muriel Rukeyser. Sometimes I lost the story. Sometimes I lost heart. Often I had to drag my head back to the play, most easily through listening to one of Christine White’s draft compositions, for part of The Speed of Darkness and for Then. What a blessing they've been. What a… ...Continue Reading
- Crisis, hope, and the life of poetry Posted in: Ruke Blog - Posted on October 3, 2013 by Catherine Gander I’m delighted to be blogging for this website for several reasons. Foremost among them is the great pleasure I have in being part of a growing community of scholars, students, readers, writers, artists, musicians, performers, filmmakers, activists and more who share a deep, inclusive appreciation for the life and legacy of Muriel Rukeyser. My first exposure to Rukeyser’s work was not to her poetry, but to her poetic philosophy. In a Master’s class at King’s College London, I had been assigned to read The Life of Poetry by someone who had once… ...Continue Reading
- From the Shaky Isles Posted in: Ruke Blog, Throat of These Hours (play) - Posted on August 22, 2013 by Marian Evans ISLANDS O for God's sake they are connected underneath They look at each other across the glittering sea some keep a low profile Some are cliffs The bathers think islands are separate like them I feel so fortunate. I've heard gifted readers read the second draft of the Throat of These Hours radio play. And I know what I'd like to do and what I have to do, to ensure it's ready to submit to Radio New Zealand at the beginning of October. This week, I'll write the third draft. And up the coast composer Christine White… ...Continue Reading
- Throat Of These Hours: Muriel Rukeyser, Verifiable & Unverifiable Posted in: Ruke Blog, Throat of These Hours (play) - Posted on July 19, 2013 by Marian Evans THEN When I am dead, even then, I will still love you, I will wait in these poems, When I am dead, even then I am still listening to you. I will be still making poems for you out of silence; silence will be falling into that silence, it is building music. ‘Why aren’t you talking with people who knew Muriel Rukeyser?’ a poet friend asks me. I explain. As a history graduate, an oral historian, a librarian, a lawyer and documentary maker of course I’m tempted to interview all of you… ...Continue Reading
- Throat of These Hours Posted in: Ruke Blog - Posted on June 6, 2013 by Marian Evans from The Speed of Darkness 13 My night awake staring at the broad rough jewel the copper roof across the way thinking of the poet yet unborn in this dark who will be the throat of these hours. No. Of those hours. Who will speak these days, if not I, if not you? Throat of These Hours is two plays, one for stage and one for radio. Both now in second draft, they have long-ago beginnings, when a lover gave me a photocopy of The Speed of Darkness. I don’t… ...Continue Reading
- Waterlily Fire Posted in: Ruke Blog - Posted on February 5, 2013 by Joe Sacksteder Elisabeth Däumer’s post Context for Waterlily Fire rightly points out the theme of interrelatedness that runs through the Living Archive’s featured poem this month. When I first read "Waterlily Fire," I was struck even more by the idea of impermanence and change, which is the actual bridge (to use Rukeyser’s image) that might be relating everything together in this poem. As I wrote in the post Synecdoche, West Virginia, Rukeyser wants her readers to see a kinship between localized disasters, whether it’s the Spanish Civil War or an outbreak of silicosis, and… ...Continue Reading
- The Brilliant Truth, Rukeyser vs. Oprah Posted in: Ruke Blog - Posted on January 14, 2013 by Joe Sacksteder Against all sage advice from my colleagues, I’m thinking about proposing a class. I want to call it “True Lies: Untruth in Nonfiction,” a creative writing class that explores the gray area that Elisabeth called attention to in my last post: the various ways that artists define truth. The first thing that comes to mind is James Frey’s Oprah-enraging “memoir,” A Million Little Pieces. What I’m more concerned with, though, is the unflinching, unapologetic notion of how we can make stuff up and claim that it’s somehow truer than what actually happened.… ...Continue Reading
- Synecdoche, Minnesota Posted in: Ruke Blog - Posted on December 14, 2012 by Joe Sacksteder My bio on the homepage for “Muriel Rukeyser: A Living Archive” states that I just completed a novel partly inspired by The Book of the Dead, and I wanted to use this post to relate how Rukeyser’s poetry has influenced my creative work. Back in undergrad at St. John’s University, I was lucky enough to be able to do volunteer work at the Minnesota Correctional Facility in St. Cloud, an institution with a very unique history. Most of my initial knowledge was word-of-mouth, and it disturbed me in a gut-level way that… ...Continue Reading
Newer Posts→
