Oedipus
The very familiar figure of Oedipus appears in the poem titled simply “Myth” as an old blind man who is decades removed from the tragic circumstances which defines his life. For the first time since, he crosses path with the Sphinx whose riddle played so great a role in his fate. There he learns that his answer to the famous riddle—what walks on four legs in the morning, two at noon, and three in the evening—was actually not correct between his answer was “man” but he neglected to say anything about “woman.” When Oedipus suggests that everybody knows that when someone says “man” they mean women, too, he gets an eye-opening response.
Brother and Sister (Boy with His Hair Cut Short)
In a small apartment room in an unidentified big city during the Great Depression, a sister is cutting her brother’s hair. This is necessitated by weeks without success in his daily search for employment. The sister is encouraging in her words, but they both recognize the irony of such optimism. It is a snapshot of a historical moment frozen in time, conveyed mostly in an indirect fashion through imagery and irony.
The Harlem Hot Dog Vender (Ballad of Orange and Grape)
The man selling hot dogs in Harlem in this poem exhibits a peculiar idiosyncrasy which irritates the first-person narrator: he sells orange drink from the container marked GRAPE and grape drink from the container marked ORANGE. This unexplained quirk of the vender sets the stage for the poem’s consideration of the power of language and the potential for that power to be corrupted when abused.
Mearl Blankenship
The title character of this poem references historical fact: the Hawk’s Nest Tunnel disaster in which anywhere from 500 to 1,000 workers died as a result of developing lung disease as a result of unprotected exposure to silica dust. Much of the poem takes the form of semi-literate letter written by Blankenship to the contractors responsible: Rinehart & Dennis.
The Minotaur
The poet who famous asserted in verse “No more mythologies!” returned again and again to ancient myth for characters to popular her poetry. In Rukeyser’s treatment, the fearsome titular beast of the labyrinth of a pathetic figure, beaten down by betrayal, deprived of his pride and blind. A lost soul, trapped in the center of the maze that was once his kingdom, he is halfway to madness.
