26 Poetry for Students

tween orange and grape could be seen as a symbol

of rebellion, a gesture toward undermining the cat-

egories that unequally divide the social world of

East Harlem, “black and white, women and men.”

Rukeyser saw her role as a poet globally. She

wrote sweepingly, passionately, and personally of

her century and her world, drawing daring paral-

lels between the self and the universe in a Tran-

scendentalist tradition. But there is a flip side to

such heroically vast vision. It tends to obliterate the

diversity and complexity of the local. Thus it is, for

me, as a poem ofplacethat “Ballad” falters. Its

speaker does not acknowledge that she is not re-

ally a member of the East Harlem community or

admit that she may not be attuned to its own, par-

ticular brand of language use with its own unique

and unappreciated powers.

Source:Sarah Madsen Hardy, in an essay for Poetry for

Students,Gale, 2001.

Erika Taibl

Taibl has a master’s degree in English writ-

ing and writes for a variety of educational pub-

lishers. In the following essay, she discusses the in-

terplay of opposing words, such as good and evil,

in “The Ballad of Orange and Grape,” and how

the poem questions and celebrates the complex

meanings of words.

With The Theory of Flight,published in 1935,

Muriel Rukeyser, at a mere twenty-one years-old,

entered the poetry scene as a full blown “spokes-

poet.” As a voice for women and the marginalized

(those outside the mainstream) of society, Rukeyser

strove from the very beginning to share her politi-

cal and social visions of humanitarian action. The

collection won her the Yale Younger Poets award

and launched her career as a political poet. From

the beginning, Rukeyser has melded her career and

passion as a writer with her political activism. Sep-

arating life from politics, for Rukeyser, is like sep-

arating life from poetry, which she viewed as be-

ing impossible. Thirty-eight years after Theory of

Flight,came Breaking Open,a continuation of

Rukeyser’s political convictions through powerful

images. Critics have likened reading Rukeyser’s

work to reading the history of her times. She is

stubborn in her loyalty to current social struggles

and honest in her frustrations. She is a poet of wit-

ness, training her readers to be witnesses.

Her collection of essays and elegies,Life of

Poetry,offers keen insight into the goals and strug-

gles of the poet as an agent of culture and change.

In the text, Rukeyser notices “how in our culture

every quality is set against another quality.” She

discusses how good and evil, for example, are taken

as opposites, not as two problems in their “inter-

play.” “Ballad of Orange and Grape” is one of

many poems that explore this theory of perceived

opposites. Rukeyser stretches the language, and

questions the meanings of words. Is orange really

orange? What isorange exactly, and, more deeply,

what does it mean and how did it get that way?

Rukeyser explores the time after people discover

Ballad of Orange and Grape

What

Do I Read

Next?

• Readers wishing to get a sense of the breadth of
  Rukeyser’s writing career should begin with A
  Muriel Rukeyser Reader,edited by Jan Heller
  Levi. This compilation includes highlights from
  Rukeyser’s eleven volumes of poetry as well as
  a provocative array of her songs, lectures, and
  biographical writings.


• Theory of Flight,published when she was only
  twenty-two years old, was Rukeyser’s daring
  and highly praised literary debut. It is still
  among her most frequently discussed collections
  of poetry.


• The poet to whom Rukeyser is most often com-
  pared is Walt Whitman, an impassioned voice
  of the democratic American spirit and an in-
  ventor of free verse. His classic collection
  Leaves of Grasswas one of Rukeyser’s strongest
  influences.


• No More Masks!,an anthology of feminist po-
  etry edited by Florence House and Ellen Bass,
  takes its name from a line in a Rukeyser poem.
  This volume places Rukeyser in the context of
  an emerging tradition of feminist poets.


• Adrienne Rich shares with Rukeyser a strong
  belief in the political relevance of poetry. Rich’s
  The Dream of a Common Languageis a criti-
  cally acclaimed collection of poetry addressing
  themes of oppression, feminism, sexuality, and
  motherhood.