Muriel Rukeyser has been an interesting writer to read in the last week. First off, "The Book of the Dead" proved to be as intense as the hype I read behind it. It was extremely fascinating the way the story was set up within the poem. Starting with the first section of the road when it reads "Past your tall central city's influence, outside it's body: traffic, penumbral crowds, are centered removed and strong" and "These roads will take you into your own country. Select the mountains and follow rivers back, travel the passes." All though there is one of the shorter parts of the overall poem, it does a great job at setting up the background of everything. It's a very random way to start out a poem because it feels like a story within a story. Then finally it reaches the point where it reaches the actual story. So this intro of the direction of how to get to this so called town really hooks the reader into the story of what happened in this town in West Virginia. It then breaks down into a dialogue between reporter and locals. It gives a report of the accident that happens within the town. This strategy of the section "Statement: Philippa Allen" gives a closer look to the poem and gives the reader a realistic look of the events. The testimonies throughout show the raw emotion of these workers and what they went through.
It was super hard trying to find a poet that can be compared to this style, especially modern day. This poem is written in a very unique way and not many people have tried to imitate it to its point. I guess one of the connecting points would be the testimonies of the workers written throughout. One poem that caught my eye that was written very recently is by Karen Connelly and is called "The Children. It's basically written as a testimony of the unborn lives that scream out for life and how special life really is. I would say this is almost considered a testimony of her opinion. In comparison, both of these tell a story within a story. One may go a lot more in depth, but Connelly's work does portray a certain outcry that had similar use within Rukeyser's work.
http://lemonhound.com/2014/04/17/karen-connelly-the-children/