Muriel Rukeyser
Muriel Rukeyser
Muriel Rukeyserwas an American poet and political activist, best known for her poems about equality, feminism, social justice, and Judaism. Kenneth Rexroth said that she was the greatest poet of her "exact generation"...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth15 December 1913
CountryUnited States of America
Muriel Rukeyser quotes about
american-poet brought poems
Our poems will have failed if our readers are not brought by them beyond the poems.
atoms universe
The universe is made up of stories, not of atoms
pride offering singing
I hear the singing of the lives of women. They clear mystery, the offering, and pride.
poetry spirit source
The sources of poetry are in the spirit seeking completeness.
poetry possibility outrage
Outrage and possibility are in all the poems we know ...
made our-lives
All the poems of our lives are not yet made.
new-beginnings blessing all-things
Nourish beginnings, let us nourish beginnings. Not all things are blest, but the seeds of all things are blest. The blessing is in the seed.
vocabulary work-out silence
I am working out the vocabulary of my silence.
flight contradiction
Flight is intolerable contradiction.
three-things done forget
What three things can never be done? / Forget. Keep silent. Stand alone
personality happens
Whatever can happen to anyone can happen to me.
imagination poetry feelings
Poetry is, above all, an approach to the truth of feeling . . .. A fine poem will seize your imagination intellectually-that is, when you reach it, you will reach it intellectually too- but the way is through emotion, through what we call feeling.
beware falls possible rest second talk
I think there is choice possible to us at any moment, as long as we live. But there is no sacrifice. There is a choice, and the rest falls away. Second choice does not exist. Beware of those who talk about sacrifice.
penalty
In our period, they say there is free speech. They say there is no penalty for poets, There is no penalty for writing poems. They say this. This is the penalty.