Muriel Rukeyser QUOTES

21 " All power is saved, having no end. Rises
in the green season, in the sudden season
the white the budded
and the lost. "

― Muriel Rukeyser , The Book of the Dead

22 " Did you ever bury thirty-five men in a place in back of your house,
thirty-five tunnel workers the doctors didn't attend,
died in the tunnel camps, under rocks, everywhere, world without end. "

― Muriel Rukeyser , The Book of the Dead

23 " Willard Gibbs is the type of the imagination at work in the world. His story is that of an opening up which has had its effect on our lives and our thinking; and, it seems to me, it is the emblem of the naked imagination —which is called abstract and impractical, but whose discoveries can be used by anyone who is interested, in whatever 'field'— an imagination which for me, more than that of any other figure in American thought, any poet, or political, or religious figure, stands for imagination at its essential points. "

― Muriel Rukeyser

24 " I am working out the vocabulary of my silence. "

― Muriel Rukeyser

25 " 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. "

― Muriel Rukeyser

26 " If there were no poetry on any day in the world, poetry would be invented that day. For there would be an intolerable hunger. "

― Muriel Rukeyser

27 " The universe is not made of atoms; it's made of stories. "

― Muriel Rukeyser

28 " I think there is choice possible at any moment to us, 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 "

― Muriel Rukeyser , The Life of Poetry

29 " What three things can never be done?
Forget. Keep silent. Stand alone.
The hill of glass, the fatal brilliant plain. "

― Muriel Rukeyser , The Book of the Dead

30 " Wherever
we walk
we will make

Wherever
we protest
we will go planting

Make poems
seed grass
feed a child growing
build a house
Whatever we stand against
We will stand feeding and seeding

Wherever
I walk
I will make "

― Muriel Rukeyser , Out of Silence: Selected Poems

31 " He said he would be back and we'd drink wine together
He said that everything would be better than before
He said we were on the edge of a new relation
He said he would never again cringe before his father
He said that he was going to invent full-time
He said he loved me that going into me
He said was going into the world and the sky
He said all the buckles were very firm
He said the wax was the best wax
He said Wait for me here on the beach
He said Just don't cry

I remember the gulls and the waves
I remember the islands going dark on the sea
I remember the girls laughing
I remember they said he only wanted to get away from me
I remember mother saying : Inventors are like poets, a trashy lot
I remember she told me those who try out inventions are worse
I remember she added : Women who love such are the worst of all
I have been waiting all day, or perhaps longer.
I would have liked to try those wings myself.
It would have been better than this. "

― Muriel Rukeyser

32 " American poetry has been part of a culture in conflict....We are a people tending toward democracy at the level of hope; at another level, the economy of the nation, the empire of business within the republic, both include in their basic premise the idea of perpetual warfare "

― Muriel Rukeyser , The Life of Poetry

33 " In all the cities of this year
I have longed for the other city. "

― Muriel Rukeyser

34 " LOOKING AT EACH OTHER

Yes, we were looking at each other
Yes, we knew each other very well
Yes, we had made love with each other many times
Yes, we had heard music together
Yes, we had gone to the sea together
Yes, we had cooked and eaten together
Yes, we had laughed often day and night
Yes, we fought violence and knew violence
Yes, we hated the inner and outer oppression
Yes, that day we were looking at each other
Yes, we saw the sunlight pouring down
Yes, the corner of the table was between us
Yes, our eyes saw each other's eyes
Yes, our mouths saw each other's mouths
Yes, our breasts saw each other's breasts
Yes, our bodies entire saw each other
Yes, it was beginning in each
Yes, it threw waves across our lives
Yes, the pulses were becoming very strong
Yes, the beating became very delicate
Yes, the calling the arousal
Yes, the arriving the coming
Yes, there it was for both entire
Yes, we were looking at each other "

― Muriel Rukeyser , The Collected Poems

35 " It is growing worse every day. At night
"I get up to catch my breath. If I remained
"flat on my back I believe I would die. "

― Muriel Rukeyser , The Book of the Dead

36 " 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 still be making poems for you
out of silence;
silence will be falling into that silence,
it is building music. "

― Muriel Rukeyser , The Collected Poems

37 " Waiting for Icarus "

He said he would be back and we’d drink wine together
He said that everything would be better than before
He said we were on the edge of a new relation
He said he would never again cringe before his father
He said that he was going to invent full-time
He said he loved me that going into me
He said was going into the world and the sky
He said all the buckles were very firm
He said the wax was the best wax
He said Wait for me here on the beach
He said Just don’t cry

I remember the gulls and the waves
I remember the islands going dark on the sea
I remember the girls laughing
I remember they said he only wanted to get away from me
I remember mother saying : Inventors are like poets,
a trashy lot
I remember she told me those who try out inventions are worse
I remember she added : Women who love such are the
Worst of all
I have been waiting all day, or perhaps longer.
I would have liked to try those wings myself.
It would have been better than this. "

― Muriel Rukeyser , The Collected Poems

38 " In our time, they say there is no penalty for writing poems.
They say this.
This is the penalty. "

― Muriel Rukeyser

39 " The man in the white coat is the man on the hill,
the man with the clean hands is the man with the drill,
the man who answers "yes" lies still. "

― Muriel Rukeyser , The Book of the Dead

40 " Lying in the grass
girl and boy
Eating oranges, exchanging kisses
like waves exchanging whiteness.

Lying on the beach
girl and boy.
Eating apples, exchanging kisses
like clouds exchanging whiteness.

Lying underground
girl and boy.
Saying nothing, never kissing
exchanging silence for silence. "

― Muriel Rukeyser , The Collected Poems

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