Muriel Rukeyser (1913-1980) was a prolific Jewish American writer and intellectual who over five decades produced a vast and varied body of works: Fifteen collections of poems, the essential prose work about American culture, The Life of Poetry, a memoir, children’s literature, plays, films, translations, and biographies. This collection assembles publications and multiple activities of The Muriel Rukeyser Living Archive, a website created in 2012 by Elisabeth Däumer, Professor of English and Women’s and Gender Studies at Eastern Michigan University, and Adam Nannini, who was an honors undergraduate student in the English Department at the time. The collection also includes archival documents from the Louise Kertesz Papers housed in the Eastern Michigan University Archive. Louise Kertesz wrote the first book-length study of Rukeyser’s entire body of works, The Poetic Vision of Muriel Rukeyser, which was published in 1980. Kertesz’s papers comprise letters, photographs, three audio cassettes, and research materials that she had collected during the years of researching and composing her book on Rukeyser. The Muriel Rukeyser Collection is designed to give a permanent, easily accessible home to the growing body of critical and creative responses published on The Muriel Rukeyser Living Archive. It also facilitates online access to a selection of pertinent archival documents housed in the University Archive.
Please direct any questions to Elisabeth Däumer at edaumer@emich.edu.