Muriel Rukeyser

Muriel Rukeyser was born in 1913 in New York. Every article about her that I read  emphasised her political activism. Already during studies at university she was a reporter in a leftist undergraduate journal where she described, among others, the inequality of contemporary society. Rukeyser was a feminist, fighting for rights of different social communities. She was even jailed for her protests of the Vietnam War. According to literary critics her activism was strongly associated with her literary works but despite her political involvement, she was not a propagandist. 

Muriel Rukeyser explored different genres and topics, including Judaism. She is described as Impassioned, self-confident, eclectic, a poet of powerful expression, a poet of the political and the personal.

We will see today a part of her poem (link to the whole work) called Effort at Speech Between Two People.

:  Speak to me.          Take my hand.            What are you now?
   I will tell you all.          I will conceal nothing.
   When I was three, a little child read a story about a rabbit
   who died, in the story, and I crawled under a chair    :
   a pink rabbit    :    it was my birthday, and a candle
   burnt a sore spot on my finger, and I was told to be happy.

:  Oh, grow to know me.        I am not happy.        I will be open:
   Now I am thinking of white sails against a sky like music,
   like glad horns blowing, and birds tilting, and an arm about me.
   There was one I loved, who wanted to live, sailing.

This poem is a monologue in which the persona confides in us, tells their story starting with one of the first memories. The phrases are short, we see also a rhetorical question. 

The last part of this poem is:

yesterday

    I stood in a crowded street that was live with people,

    and no one spoke a word, and the morning shone.

    Everyone silent, moving. . . . Take my hand.          Speak to me.

We can see an enormous need to be heard and understood. I think that this poem is a reflection on our society: on the one hand very crowded and and full of hum but, one the other hand, saying nothing meaningful.

Based on: Wikipedia note and link.