In the poetry of Muriel Rukeyser, as represented in three volumes published between 1930 and 1939, it is possible to trace the history of a movement in American letters that was at the same time literary and political. Since her range is wide, and her methods pliable, she has expressed in these volumes the sentiments of many in her generation, and has suggested certain influences that reshaped and ultimately transformed them. (p. 554)

One of the most interesting phases of the transformation of the social poet in years of stress is the change in his use of language. In the case of Muriel Rukeyser, it moves from that of simple declarative exhortation, in the common phrases of the city man, to that of a gnarled, intellectual, almost private observation. In her earlier usage, images are apt to be simple and few; the whole approach is apt to be through the medium of urban speech. In the latter work, images become those of the psychologist, or of the surrealist, charged with meaning and prevalent everywhere. Parallel with this change is the increasing complication of symbols; the first are public, the last, even though they may represent universal issues, are privately conceived and privately endowed. In these changes may be found the central problem of the modern social poet. That is, how may he develop his talent in the full resources of the language and accumulated techniques, and yet speak clearly and persuasively to men about him. (p. 555)

Since the social poet is one to whom communication is the first and necessary virtue, his attempts to be strong and clear without seeming banal, and his attempts to use the complex resources of the English language in an original way, are twin problems that are as yet unresolved. Since the work of Muriel Rukeyser demonstrates both of these extremes, a careful examination of the shifts and expansions of her method and thought may lead to a meaningful resolution.

With the publication of her first volume, Theory of Flight,… American poetry found its first full-blown expression of the rebellious temper that prevailed on American campuses and among the younger intellectuals. Its success was immediate, and it took its place as the American equivalent of such work as that published by the new revolutionary group of English poets exemplified by Auden, Spender, and Lewis…. Miss Rukeyser was praised for the ruggedness of her technique, her experimentalism, and for the powerful utterance which, from a woman, seemed unique. (p. 556)

The first indication of a concern that becomes major in her succeeding work occurs in the poem, Effort at Speech Between Two People. Here, with overtones of Eliot and the personal frustrations of the twenties, is a suggestion that communication is ultimately impossible. (pp. 559-60)

This poem, in its isolation from the political temper of the rest of [Theory of Flight], seems unrepresentative. Its attitudes are adolescent, its sense of tragedy superficial and commonplace. However, in the light of Miss Rukeyser's later development, it assumes importance. It is the individualistic anchor in the first book which holds the author to her own emotions. When those emotions are forced to play upon the hazards of political action, a new conflict becomes manifest.

Soon after the personal acceptance of a place in the revolutionary movement, the author puts by the sheer expression of exhilaration in an attempt to realize an intellectual objectification of her position. One of the choices for this is the concept of flight in modern mechanical terms…. In this instance, all of history is seen as an attempt at human expansion in the terms of flight. And though the author knows that this attempt has produced no release from the human condition, she rejoices in the fact that it has produced an increasingly complex, and increasingly able, human community…. (pp. 560-61)

[In the first volume,] Miss Rukeyser manages, in a few passages, to incorporate into respectable poetry some of the more profound tenets of dialectical materialism. In this attempt, she succeeds in retaining a durable and clear language and, though her images are neither new nor particularly arresting, the quiet yet passionate expression of faith holds them together. They are, consequently, not significant in themselves, but in unfamiliar juxtapositions. (p. 562)

In The Lynchings of Jesus, Muriel Rukeyser makes use, in poetic terms, of a tendency that was evident in the politics of the Popular Front movement of the early and middle years of the decade, i.e. the trick of rediscovering popular heroes as partisans of modern issues. The Marxist aspects of Lincoln's thought, for instance, or at least those aspects which could be shown as parallel to modern Marxist sentiments, were re-examined and publicized. Thus, in Passage to Godhead, Miss Rukeyser reinvokes the Christian legend…. The effect, though attained through methods that must remain suspect, is often rich both as drama and as poetry. Since any new interpretation of old mythology will have a local interest, that is part of the success here…. The strength of her partisanship assures a passionate viewpoint, while the new symbols, and the necessity for new imagery, test her poetic ingenuity.

Another strain in this book that, beginning unobtrusively, leads toward later complexity, is that suggested in the poem Eccentric Motion. This poem is similar to many of Auden's and of the English group of Oxford radicals who came to prominence in the early thirties. The language of the popular ballad, of the music-hall song, is used to make serious observation. There is a foreign ring here, quite alien to the body of Miss Rukeyser's work, yet one which persists through all of her books…. Perhaps more important than the suggestion of foreign influences, this poem shows that Miss Rukeyser retains, even in the days of her most outspoken commitment to a social program, a detached viewpoint: she is able to speak of herself and the society she abhors as "we." Thus, a completely minor poem suggests the whole turn of her latter work.

Theory of Flight makes a single impression: emotional, unhesitant affirmation. Though there are marginal suggestions of many new influences, none is realized in any distinctive poem. The poet's emphasis is clearly upon the thing said, and not the manner of expression. The volume is plethoric and sprawling, full of extravagances, yet rich and evocative. It would be only natural for the author of such a work to seek development in control.

In 1938, Muriel Rukeyser published her second book of poems, [U.S. 1], deriving its title from the federal highway that runs from Maine to Florida. This collection showed a stage in her development that was notable for tendencies toward objectification of those feelings that, in the earlier book, were expressed with emotional extravagance. This process was furthered by her use of a new form that had come into prominence in those years, a form that was neither straight fiction nor straight exposition but a dramatic presentation of facts that combined elements of both. This form went generally under the name of "reportage," and those who used it were concerned with aligning social data in the dramatic design of fiction. (pp. 563-65)

Interested in the new reportage, both through her reading and through her work with documentary films, Muriel Rukeyser set about to write a poetic account of the tragedy that was exposed in the deaths of thousands of miners in the state of West Virginia…. Miss Rukeyser went to West Virginia and used the methods of a reporter in speaking with many of the persons involved, learning at first hand the pitiful conditions in which they lived, examining company reports and stock quotations, speaking with owners and investigators alike.

The long title poem, U.S. 1, was the result. Though she managed to present in orderly fashion the findings of a good reporter, it is surprising to find, under the name of poetry, language as barren as statistics. Many of the poems in the sequence are barely distinguishable from routine newspaper commentary. Since there is no success anywhere in her attempt to crowd the facts of a committee report into the beat of poetry, the poem as a whole is a failure. It is too long, the language remote and unevocative, the arrangement of data completely lacking on dramatic contrasts. Unlike earlier instances where her dramatic sense brought life to an otherwise undistinguished poem, this work remains flat and prosaic.

U.S. 1 represents the most extreme limit of Miss Rukeyser's attempt to objectify and it is so successful, in the narrow sense, that all suggestions of the elevation of poetry have been objectified out of existence. In one or two passages, when the poet intrudes with extraneous commentary, there is a heightening of effect that only serves to point the weakness of a method so extreme. It is also significant in this regard to notice that, when the poet leaves the statistical approach to speak for herself, elements of poetry return momentarily, suggesting that, with balance, the method might not always end in failure…. (pp. 565-66)

In the middle section of this book, between the long reportage poem and the allegorical Voyage, occur a number of lyrics that rank with the finest examples of Miss Rukeyser's work. These have been achieved through a balance of subjective emotion and objective record. In A Flashing Cliff, for instance, Love, in its most abstract sense, becomes the source of human power, the revolutionary agent in all existence…. [This poem] shows the beginnings of a great concentration of language and ideas. Such fusion was not possible while the poet spoke in the single-mindedness of a political program. Opposites are not enjoined in slogans, since the words on a banner must be outspoken and immediately understandable. Yet, though the poet has come far from sloganizing, the new verse is built upon a use of language so complex, and a compression of ideas so intense, that it is unquestionably removed from the grasp of the lay reader, not even to mention the proletarian.

Here Miss Rukeyser comes to the crux of the problem of the social poet: whether to insist upon first premises, even though that means a static repetition of familiar ideology, or to exercise full imagination and the resources of language in an endeavor to contribute a new dimension to poetry, though that attempt, in its inevitable intellectual concentration, must deny the social audience.

In this middle stage, she makes no definite choice. There are poems compact and difficult to penetrate, but they are, nonetheless, exhilarating exercises in modern rhythms and textures. No matter how far afield she may go in the errors of obscurity her technique is never dull, most often brilliant. In a sense, the poet has fallen in love with language; a romance that was delayed by the demands of political conviction.

Among these complex poems are those wherein language is reduced to utter simplicity, wherein poetic excitement comes from the dramatic presentation of the idea, as in the tender Boy With His Hair Cut Short…. (pp. 567-68)

There are personal poems that are completely individual in expression, unique among her work in that they are removed, in almost every influence, from social relationships. These show a new symbolism that is almost always tenuous and psychological. Yet the power of her language, its oblique, beaten intensity, never fails to excite wonder…. (p. 568)

Though a new direction has been firmly established, there remain instances of hearkening back to the earlier role of prophetess. Though direct exhortation is almost gone, the convictions of the poet have remained strong. When she speaks out now, it is in her own voice as a sophisticated poet and not as a coiner of slogans. At the same time, speech that has a public significance is held in restriction by her use of special, intangible, almost private symbols. (p. 569)

[U.S. 1] accomplishes the separation of the poet from her comrades and from the radical vernacular, in the sense that only a part of her interest is centered upon the immediate conflict. The tragedy for the artist as a social consciousness lies in the fact that, as her powers as a poet expand in the terms of craft, she is isolated as an articulate leader among those who claim her allegiance. The partisan feels that it is much too early to examine the bases of modern consciousness, since the manifest battle is not won, and any deviation that means a slackening or diversion of effort from the immediate goal becomes inconsequential, if not reactionary. Thus, the poet is driven into a sense of loneliness out of all proportion. Her heart is in the same place, but the demands of her immense talent have not allowed her to remain static. A diversion of her art from her beliefs has taken place that is parallel to the diversion of art from life in America today. (pp. 569-70)

Because of the progressive development of early themes and devices of craft, it is possible to say that the books of Muriel Rukeyser are different not in kind, but in degree. A Turning Wind, the latest of her published works in poetry, reinforces that conviction….

Instead of the barren objectification of social data that caused the failure of the poem U.S. 1, Miss Rukeyser has developed a strong and evocative set of symbols. (p. 570)

The hesitant, truncated passages of direct address that occurred here and there throughout [U.S. 1] give way to more forceful utterance. However it is obvious that the poet is no longer speaking to her first audience. Now she speaks almost exclusively to fellow artists, to those who, intellectual and sensitive, are in retreat. The poet, as one who has survived a general disillusion and bewilderment, is happy to reaffirm. (p. 571)

An earlier preoccupation with heroic character comes into evidence in the long last section of the book entitled Lives. In this sequence of biographical appreciations the poet celebrates individuals, only one of whom has been conspicuous for her devotion to the social good in explicit political terms. All of the others, in one degree or another, have been unsung heroes, quietly working in the arts and sciences with integrity and singularity of purpose. (pp. 571-72)

Though in U.S. 1 there is a manifest separation of the artist from her whole function as a member of the human community, a reader feels that she is not completely conscious of this, that she is still somewhat bewildered at the change that has taken place. Dislocation of poetic sensitivity has, in these times, often led to semi-hysterical privacy, to the abortive use of imagery and symbolism from sources that are but half understood. Muriel Rukeyser barely misses this pitfall in parts of the second book, but if there has remained any doubt as to her powers of reintegration, they are dispelled upon reading the first poem in her most recent volume, the elegy, Rotten Lake. This poem established the poet anew; though she has given up public speech as a major premise, she is resolved within herself as never before. This resolution brings together not only craft and direction, but the inevitable disillusion of one who has seen the revolutionary temper of her contemporaries become dissipated and insignificant and who, herself, has been forced to reconcile grave doubts concerning the efficacy of certain policies. (pp. 572-73)

Muriel Rukeyser achieved her finest sequence of poems [in] the five elegies that begin the volume. These poems show an integration of method, a fibre of belief, a philosophical authority superior to all that has gone before. Their range includes all the strains that the poet has touched upon in earlier experimentation, so that, in the greatest expansion of her powers, she has achieved the closest fusion of them as well. Though she seems, at times, to have been caught like an innocent with visions and beliefs in a world of abject denial, almost always she is consciously reconstructing a faith that will match that of her adolescence.

The poet is returning, sadder but wiser. Denying much of experience, she finds strength in the simple faith of particular friends. Beyond that, she would attain the discipline of an unsentimental insight into the failing world in order to survive its terrors with dignity. She has come to terms with tragedy. (p. 573)

This is a resolution that seems likely to endure for Miss Rukeyser, since it contains both the core of her dedication and her escape. (p. 574)

John Malcolm Brinnin, "Muriel Rukeyser: The Social Poet and the Problem of Communication," in Poetry (© 1943 by The Modern Poetry Association; reprinted by permission of the Editor of Poetry), Vol. LXI, No. 4, January, 1943, pp. 554-75.