"Muriel Rukeyser held her ground at the bloody crossroads of politics and art; she gave the word 'witness' poetic weight. The first of our women poets to enter and engage the Western tradition of prophetic outrage, she warmed it with the living voices of the injured. And in her activism and generosity, Rukeyser was as good as her word." —Eleanor Wilner

"Muriel Rukeyser's poetry is unequalled in the twentieth-century United States in its range of reference, its generosity of vision, and its energy." —Adrienne Rich

"Our poetry is just now catching up with her. She wrote on subjects thought to be beneath the dignity of poetry and entered areas that were taboo . . . Her values were based on the primacy of all the creatures, including those commonly despised. When I look at the poetry being written today that interests me most, I see it shining with signs of her presence." —Galway Kinnell