The Louise Kertesz papers

About the Collection

This donation from Louise Kertesz comprises materials related to the composition and publication of The Poetic Vision of Muriel Rukeyser: correspondences, research notes, photocopies of reviews and critical studies of Rukeyser’s works, programs, photographs, and recordings of conversations between Rukeyser and Kertesz.

This extraordinary collection of documents sheds new light on Rukeyser’s life and work.  In her correspondence and wide-ranging conversations with Kertesz, Rukeyser offers detailed responses to questions about specific works and references and addresses struggles with depression and professional disappointments. The collection includes previously unseen letters from influential authors like Kenneth Rexroth and Denise Levertov responding to Kertesz’s inquiries and her book on Rukeyser.  The stunning testimonials from former students detail Rukeyser’s idiosyncratic pedagogy.

The collection also chronicles Kertesz’s protracted struggle to find reviewers for her book on Rukeyser, a sign of the continued indifference, even hostility to Rukeyser in the 1980s. And it documents the difficulty of a talented scholar, writer, and teacher like Kertesz to find permanent employment in the academy at a time when women authors were rarely, if ever, included in the literary canon and considered worthy subjects for scholarly study.

The complete finding aid for the collection can be found through the Eastern Michigan University Archives.

Biographies

Muriel Rukeyser (1913-1980) was a Jewish American writer who over the course of five decades produced a prolific, varied body of works: Fifteen collections of poems; an essential prose work about American culture, art, and poetry, The Life of Poetry; a memoir; children’s literature, plays, films, translations, and three biographies.  Rukeyser is best known for her political themes since in many of her writings she responded to the events of her time, from an industrial disaster in West Virginia and the onset of the Spanish Civil War to World War II and the Shoah, as well as social, racial, and environmental injustices in the U.S. and abroad. Yet Rukeyser was so much more than a political poet. She had deep faith in poetry as a source of emotional and spiritual health, helping us imagine and strive for peace and justice. She was convinced that poetry in its many forms creates unique meeting places for readers especially needed during times of conflict and crisis, which tend to divide and isolate people. Aware of the widespread resistance to poetry, Rukeyser incorporated poetry into popular forms—such as film, radio plays, children’s books, and her musical on Houdini—that might prove more engaging for audiences from different backgrounds and life experiences. At the same time, she insisted that artistic accessibility should not forfeit complexity, which she considered essential for complex times.  

 

Louise Kertesz (1939-) was born in Ludlow, Western Massachusetts.  She received an M.A. in English from Columbia University in 1963 and a PhD in American Literature from the University of Illinois in 1970.  An avid reader and writer of poetry, Kertesz completed the first extensive study of Muriel Rukeyser’s wide-ranging body of works and its often dismissive reception by the literary establishment. Entitled The Poetic Vision of Muriel Rukeyser, the book was published in 1980 by Louisiana State University, not long after Rukeyser’s death in the same year. Upon seeking, unsuccessfully, to garner a tenure-track position at Wayne State University, Kertesz, by then the mother of two girls, decided to change tracks and made a living in business reporting and writing for several weekly news magazines, among them Automotive News in Detroit, Business Insurance and Modern Healthcare in Los Angeles. With the advent of the internet and laptops, she turned to freelance writing and editing, and worked as a freelance copy editor for the University of Chicago Press where she helped scholars in various disciplines on improving their manuscripts. Kertesz is currently living in Grosse Pointe, Michigan.

Names Found in the Collection

Mary Baldwin

Gloria Bowles

Kay Boyle

Esther Broner

Clive Bush

Hayden Carruth

John Cheever

Jane Cooper

Kate Daniels

Richard Eberhart

Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Sandra Gilbert

Louise Kertesz

Denise Levertov

Lyn Lyfshin

Monica McCall

Dwight McDonald

Mary Hayne North

Grace Paley

William Phillips

Marge Piercy

Miriam M. Reik

Kenneth Rexroth

Muriel Rukeyser