SOURCE: "The Closest Permissible Approximation," in Poetry, February, 1963, pp. 358–60.

Carruth is an American poet, educator, and critic. In the following mixed review of Waterlily Fire: Poems 1935–1962, Carruth notes Rukeyser's ineffective use of language but commends her honest treatment of spiritual and moral issues.

These are the opening stanzas of an early poem by Miss Rukeyser:

 The drowning young man lifted his face from the river
to me, exhausted from calling for help and weeping;
"My love!" I said; but he kissed me once for ever
and returned to his privacy and secret keeping.

His close face dripped with the attractive water,
I stared in his eyes and saw there penalty,
for the city moved in its struggle, loud about us,
and the salt air blew down; but he would face the sea. 

And one of her recent poems begins:

 Great Alexander sailing was from his true course turned...