WVU Press has published a new edition of Muriel Rukeyser’s “The Book of the Dead,” a collection of poetry from the 1930s that reminds us of the relationships among race, nature, and industrial disaster in Appalachia.
A starred review from Publisher’s Weekly calls this new edition "Innovative, gorgeous, and deeply moving."
Jedediah Purdy, author of After Nature: A Politics for the Anthropocene, notes “Muriel Rukeyser’s words are a painful, haunting memorial to an American crime. Catherine Venable Moore’s graceful essay sets the work in its time and place, and ties it to today’s struggles.”
In her introduction to Muriel Rukeyser, Selected Poems, Adrienne Rich writes “If Rukeyser had left us only The Book of the Dead and The Life of Poetry, she would have made a remarkable contribution to American literature. But the range and daring of her work, its generosity of vision, its formal innovations, and its level of energy are unequalled among twentieth-century American poets.”
Written in response to the Hawk’s Nest Tunnel disaster of 1931 in Gauley Bridge, The Book of the Dead is an important part of West Virginia’s cultural heritage and a powerful account of one of the worst industrial catastrophes in American history. The poems collected in this book investigate the roots of a tragedy that killed hundreds of workers, most of them African American. They are a rare engagement with the overlap between race and environment in Appalachia.
Published for the first time alongside photographs by Nancy Naumburg, who accompanied Rukeyser to Gauley Bridge in 1936, this edition includes an introduction by Catherine Venable Moore, whose writing on the topic has been anthologized in Best American Essays.
Muriel Rukeyser (1913–1980) was a prolific American writer and political activist. In 1935 her first collection of poetry, Theory of Flight, won the Yale Younger Poets Prize, and she went on to publish twelve more volumes of poetry. She received a National Institute of Arts and Letters award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Levinson Prize for Poetry, and the Shelley Memorial Award, among other accolades. Rukeyser’s writing consistently emphasized and utilized cinematic and graphic techniques, and she explored various connections between the visual and literary aspects of art. She originally intended The Book of the Dead to be published with multiple photos by Naumburg.
Catherine Venable Moore is a writer and producer in Fayette County. A graduate of Harvard University and the University of Montana, Moore is the recipient of fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, the Vermont Studio Center, the Highlander Center, the West Virginia Humanities Council, and others. Her nonfiction has recently appeared in Best American Essays, Oxford American, VICE, Columbia Journalism Review, and Yes! She is also an honorary member of the United Mine Workers of America. Currently, she is at work on a collection of essays.
This publication was made possible through the generosity of the West Virginia Humanities Council.
Events for The Book of the Dead:
Feb. 1, 4 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.
WVU Humanities Center
130 Colson Hall, 1503 University Avenue, Morgantown
Feb. 2, 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.
WALS Foundation and the Reuther-Wheeling Library and Labor History
1413 Eoff Street, Wheeling,
Feb. 3, 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.
White Whale Bookstore,
4754 Liberty Ave, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Now available! 144pp /PB 978-1-946684-21-9 / $17.99
To order this book, visit wvupress.com, phone 800.621.2736, or visit a local bookstore. For updates on books and events, follow WVU Press on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, join our mailing list, and follow Booktimist: A blog about Books and Culture from West Virginia University Press.