Creator Bio
Muriel Rukeyser
1913–1980
Born in New York City and educated at Vassar College and Columbia University, Muriel Rukeyser was a poet deeply committed to the ideals of social justice, equality, and feminism. Her first book, Theory of Flight, published in 1935, earned her the Yale Younger Poets prize. Her politically inspired poetry dealt with industrial disasters, the Scottsboro Case, the Spanish Civil War, and the war in Vietnam.
Entries in the Posen Library by This Creator
Primary Source
Letter to the Front
To be a Jew in the twentieth century
Is to be offered a gift. If you refuse,
Wishing to be invisible, you choose
Death of the spirit, the stone insanity.
Accepting, take full life. Full agonies:
Your…