The Book of the Dead

Speaking of poetry and resistance, the good people at Berl's poetry bookshop in Brooklyn marked May Day with a marathon reading (repeated throughout the afternoon) of Muriel Rukeyser's Book of the Dead, a sort of epic, narrative poem about a lung disease that plagued and killed miners at a West Virginia mine. The silicon particles that infested their lungs and claimed the lives of many workers is vividly described in Rukeyser's poem, which summons outrage on a scale that no journalistic account could muster, though clearly the poem is inspired by investigative accounts of the tragedy.
Though the audience was modest, (I was the only non-reader present during one reading) the event served as a reminder (to me at least) that poetry does make a difference in the world. Sure, many believe that poetry does not make anything happen, but the inspiration drawn from poetry surely can inspire us toward engagement of the kind that can make things happen in the world. A poem sparking outrage against an industrial disease and the governmental neglect toward the working people affected by the crisis seems a particularly fitting choice at this time, with Congress considering legislation to peel away health insurance coverage from potentially millions of low income, older and sick people.