SOURCE: An introduction to A Muriel Rukeyser Reader, edited by Jan Heller Levi, W. W. Norton & Company, 1994, pp. xi–xv.

Rich is regarded as among the best of contemporary American poets. Her early poetry is praised for it stylistic control and restraint of individuality, while her later work is characterized by a thorough shift to personal, political, and feminist themes, and to experimental styles. Rich's poetry, considered by Hayden Carruth exemplary of a new aesthetic, is rooted in an existential view of the human condition and of the poet as self-creator. As a critic, Rich provides a strongly feminist perspective. In the following essay, she provides an overview of the major themes of Rukeyser's poetry.

To enter this [A Muriel Rukeyser Reader] is to enter a life of tremendous scope, the consciousness of a woman who was a full actor and creator in her time. But in many...