Muriel Rukeyser (1913–1980) was born in New York City. She attended Vassar College and then Columbia University. Her first collection, "Theory of Flight," won the Yale Younger Poets Prize in 1935. Her subsequent books of poetry would be inspired by the injustice she witnessed in the US and abroad, including the Scottsboro trial in Alabama and the civil war in Spain. Rukeyser felt a deep responsibility to comment on human rights issues and her poems became, in part, a platform for social protest.

Headshot of Muriel Rukeyser

Deborah Paredez is the author of the poetry volumes "This Side of Skin" (Wings Press, 2002) and "Year of the Dog" (BOA, 2020) and of the critical study "Selenidad: Selena, Latinos, and the Performance of Memory" (Duke University Press, 2019). She is the cofounder of CantoMundo, a national organization for Latinx poets. She teaches creative writing and ethnic studies at Columbia University and is completing a book about divas and their impact on her life and on American culture over the past 50 years.

Headshot of Deborah Paredez

...it captures both the sense of isolation and deep connection that mark our everyday lives during moments of turmoil.

“Poem (I lived in the first century of world wars)” by Muriel Rukeyser

Poem (I lived in the first century of world wars) by Muriel Rukeyser

Hero-Poem (I Lived...)-Screen Shot

Video: “Poem (I lived during the first century of wars)”

Artists as Catalysts

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Beyond Incarceration

A side profile of a Black poet who is wearing glasses and a hat with a feather hat pin.

Borderlands Cultures

In portrait orientation, an aerial view of a major highway running parallel to a large border wall set on a hilly landscape

Civic Engagement

A man in a brown jacket stands in front of blue bulletin board that is covered with papers and advertisements  

Evolving Higher Education

A vertical image of an Indigenous person who is sitting on a chair in front of a backdrop.

Expanding Public Knowledge

An interior room filled with audio and video equipment 

Monuments and Memory

A multicolored painted totem pole set in front of a foggy forest landscape

Multivocality

Five people stand together in a group photo. They are laughing and smiling.

Power of the Word

Five colorful neon signs hang on the wall with messages that include, "Freedom cannot wait," "Brown owned," and "America is for Dreamers."

Public Places‚ Public Stories

A group of Indigenous Maskoke people stand and sit in the wooden frame of a structure in a woods

Puerto Rico and Its Diaspora

In a vertical image, a black leather vest is adorned with colorful pins across the front of it. Embroidery on the vest reads: "Felícitas "La Prieta" Méndez" 

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