any consistent rhyme scheme, meter, line length,
or stanza structure.
In the absence of any stylistic flourishes, the
poem’s message becomes central. There is noth-
ing too mysterious about what ‘‘St. Roach’’
wants to tell readers. Starting with the title, it is
fairly clear that what she is saying isn’t meant to
be taken literally: though she might make a case
for being more attentive to what the cockroach
has to offer, no one would seriously imagine that
she is nominating the insect for sainthood. With
a tendency for exaggeration established, readers
can hardly fail to see how the references to
human culture that are attributed to cock-
roaches eventually stop being applicable to any
creatures but humans. The cultural aspects that
she talks about, specifically songs, poems, and
food, imply that she is talking about human
beings. References to darkness further indicate
that the poem is about the feelings that separate
the races, not really the distrust between humans
and insects at all. This message resides fairly
close to the surface of the poem, so that few
could fail to understand it after sufficient study.
Ironically, what may have once been the
poem’s chief virtue—that it confronts race rela-
tions directly, with very little artifice for readers
to dig through—has come to be its downfall over
the course of time, obscuring what is good about
it. Readers of the twenty-first century still under-
stand the message it offers, but times have
changed. The children or even grandchildren of
Rukeyser’s original audience do not live in a
world where there is racial equality, but nor do
they live in a world where race relations are
defined by mystery. Multiculturalism is an idea
that has caught on. People of all backgrounds
run for political offices, control the destinies of
their employees, and are familiar to readers of
magazines fromForbestoPeople. Of course,WHAT
DO I READ
NEXT? Marion Copeland’s bookCockroach(2004)
includes an examination of artistic works
that, like this poem, present the insect as a
symbol of different things, all having to do
with revulsion and endurance.
The Invisible Elephant: Exploring Cultural
Awareness(2006), by Tom Verghese—a
Malaysian writer living in Australia,
gives readers an idea of how to experience
unfamiliar cultures with respect and
attention.
In 1915, Franz Kafka published ‘‘The
Metamorphosis,’’ a work of short fiction
about a traveling salesman who wakes up
one morning to find that he has been trans-
formed into a gigantic insect (with most
interpretations identifying the insect as a
cockroach). The story is about what it
feelsliketobealienatedinthemodern
world and is considered to be a part of the
Western literary canon.
InHow Shall We Tell Each Other of the
Poet? The Life and Writing of Muriel
Rukeyser(1999), the editors Anne F. Herzog
and Janet E. Kaufman bring together
thoughts and reminiscences about Rukeyser
and her works. Essays written by friends,
critics, students, and other poets communi-
cate the overall effect of Rukeyser’s career.
First published in 1949, Rukeyser’sThe Life
of Poetryis a meditation on what poetry is,
what it is good for, and what it should do.
The poet’s theories, though they did not fit
in with the standards set by most literary
critics, did not change much over time.
The poet Anne Sexton, a friend of Rukeys-
er’s, wrote her well-known antiwar poem
‘‘The Firebombers’’ (1968) under the influ-
ence of Rukeyser’s strident views regarding
poetry as political activism. It is available
in The Complete Poems: Anne Sexton
(2000).
BUT NOW THAT THE STRANGLEHOLD OF
TRADITIONAL WHITE CULTURE, WHICH PREVAILED
INTO THE 1970S, HAS BEEN BROKEN, THE OBVIOUS
QUESTION ARISES: WHO WOULD APPROVE OF EQUATING
OPPRESSED MINORITIES WITH COCKROACHES?’’St. Roach