"A New Poem" was published in the November/December 1979 issue of American Poetry Review. It can be purchased from APR here. "A New Poem" also appears in The Collected Poems of Muriel Rukeyser, edited by Janet Kaufman and Anne Herzog, published by the University of Pittsburgh Press in 2006.
The Gates was published by McGraw Hill in 1976. It is no longer in print, but copies may be available through IndieBound. The contents of The Gates also appear in The Collected Poems of Muriel Rukeyser, edited by Janet Kaufman and Anne Herzog, published by the University of Pittsburgh Press in 2006.
Willard Gibbs was published in 1942. It can be purchased through Ox Bow Press here.
Beast in View was published by Doubleday Doran in 1944. It is no longer in print, but copies may be available through IndieBound. The contents of Beast in View also appear in The Collected Poems of Muriel Rukeyser, edited by Janet Kaufman and Anne Herzog, published by the University of Pittsburgh Press in 2006.
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 [...]
Performed by Victoria Emanuela Pozyczka, JT Garfield on guitar and Jon Walters on cello. Victoria's commentary:This was a poetry performance at Alexander Hall for Eastern Michigan's Muriel Rukeyser Symposium (March 14, 2013). I was fortunate enough to create a sound poetry piece and perform during the music and poetry event. I'm currently taking the wonderful Christine Hume's "Sound Poetry" graduate course to further my skills as a sound poet. It's been a fantastic experience and I'm very thankful that Christine provided this opportunity for individuals in the class to perform, aka, my wonderful classmates! My performance was in two parts: [...]
This is a remix of Muriel Rukeyser's "Waterlily Fire" created by EMU Creative Writing student Kellie Nadler. Download Audio: M4A
Learn more about this important twentieth-century poet from our website – Who was Rukeyser?.
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