Silence and Spaces in Muriel Rukeyser’s “The Speed of Darkness”

Edited by: Trent Wintermeier

In 1969 Muriel Rukeyser held a poetry reading that included a group of thirteen poems titled “The Speed of Darkness” at Sir George Williams University (SGWU) in Montreal. Rukeyser (1913–1980) was an American poet, essayist, and political activist whose work focused on topics such as labor, war, feminism, politics, and science. She included “The Speed of Darkness” in a poetry collection of the same name that was published later in her career in 1968.

The poetry reading is part of a series held at SGWU that was conceived as an ongoing encounter between local poets and the avant-garde poetics of writers from the United States and Canada. Established by “The Poetry Committee” in the SGWU English Department, the readings involved more than sixty poets. The entire collection of recordings, including the one that is annotated in this micro-edition, is held by SpokenWeb Montreal as part of their Sir George Williams Poetry Reading Series. Please see https://montreal.spokenweb.ca/ for additional details about the collection.

Audio credits: “Muriel Rukeyser at SGWU, 1969,” The Poetry Series, Sir George Williams University, January 24, 1969, SpokenWeb “Sir George Williams Poetry Series.”