638
PARTISAN REVIEW
Fast as a dancer, lighl, slrange and lovely to the louch.
I reach, I touch , I begin lO know you.
And in a major sequence, "Waterlily Fire" (1962), she builds an image
of "the long body"-the physical being-as a ribbon of images, incor–
porating change.
This journey is exploring us. Where the child slood
An island in a river of crisis, now
The bridges bind us in symbol, the sea
Is a bond , the sky reaches into our bodies.
We pray: we dive inlo each olher's eyes .
Muriel Rukeyser writes of the gradual emergence of self through
opposites, making original use of a tradition that recalls William
Blake's perception that "Without Contraries is no Progression. "
It
is
reminiscent also of Walt Whitman 's discovery of unity through con–
trasts ("I am of the old and the young . . . of the woman the same as of
the man") and Melville's aesthetic of discordant parts, as expressed in
his poem, "Art." Her conviction of personal wholeness has an organiz–
ing power, for it enables her
to
order modern experience by perceiving
the linkages between people.
In
the later poems, especially, Muriel Rukeyser has written force–
fully about unity, fusing a natural, conversational style with a tone of
vatic urgency. "Are You Born?" (1957) embodies a vision of nature as
an organic part of the soul. And in "Breaking Open," the speaker
contemplates enclosures we make for ourselves, considering real pris–
ons for antiwar protestors as well as imaginary "prisons" we devise.
Rukeyser's poems do not fit easi ly into any sty listic mode, and
have been criticized for their occasional lack of quickness and of grace.
But this volume displays a tough-minded compassion that is never
merely sentimental.
GRACE SCHULMAN
