Dayton - Muriel rukeysers the book of the dead

I have had the help of countless people in the years since I began working on The Book of the Dead; none of them are responsible for this books shortcomings, nor for the positions I take up. The staff of the Interlibrary Services department of Hale Library, Kansas State University, was consistently cheerful and efficient in tracking down obscure material. The special-collections librarians of the University of Delaware; Brown University; Syracuse University; the Library of Congress; and the Berg Collection, New York Public Library, provided me with invaluable assistance. In particular, Stephen Crook of the Berg Collection provided help in the early stages of the project, when I was still feeling my way. Beverly Jarrett, Jane Lago, and Gary Kass of the University of Missouri Press oversaw the transformation of my manuscript into a book with great professionalism and care. Finally, by way of institutional acknowledgments, Kansas State University provided me with a much-needed sabbatical midway through the project, as well as a research grant that made it possible for me to meet Muriel Rukeysers son and literary executor, William, and to study those papers of hers that he has kept in his possession.

Several classes of undergraduate and graduate students at Kansas State University have been subjected both to my general obsessionsto which all my students are liableand to my obsessions specific to The Book of the Dead, and I thank them for indulging me. In particular I found the comments and questions of Sarah Caldwell, Jim Hohenbary, and Kirsten Young of use as I was developing my thoughts about Rukeysers poem. A former student, David Kruger, served ably as a research assistant, saving me a good deal of time and money that would have been spent on travel. Mary Siegle, secretary of the Department of English, cheerfully provided very timely assistance with typing.

I was given information that proved helpful in the construction of my argument by William Rukeyser and Alan Wald, both of whom were uncommonly generous. I am indebted also to a number of individuals who readall or part of this book in manuscript form. Donna Potts and Larry Rodgers read an early essay version and provided valuable comments that showed me some possible lines of development I could follow once I decided that my project was book-length in scope. The anonymous readers for the Journal of Modern Literature, as well as editor-in-chief Morton Levitt, provided valuable suggestions and criticisms that improved the essay I eventually published in that journal. I use portions of that essay, Lyric and Document in Muriel Rukeysers The Book of the Dead (Journal of Modern Literature 21:2 [Winter 1997]: 22340), in this book. Jamie Owen Daniel and Jerry Dees read the first manuscript version of this book and gave me countless valuable suggestions at a point when I was incapable of seeing my own work clearly anymore. My anonymous readers at the University of Missouri Press also helped me to improve the manuscript considerably, and I am grateful for their efforts.

Finally, I would like to thank members of my family. My mother and father, Shirley and William Dayton, provided various kinds of support through the years that made it possible for me to get to the point where I could actually do something like write a book. My uncle, Cliff Dayton, was an intelligent, well-read man without the benefit of higher education; he helped provide the impetus for this book through his example and through his insistence when I was young that I get as much education as I could stand. My wife, Angela Hubler, patiently read virtually every version of this work with a fine combination of rigor and generosity. She was always there when I needed her, which was often. Our two children, Neil and Jack, provided no such help (although they did occasionally ask how I was doing, once they got old enough) and no doubt added years to the time it took to finish the thing. They, however, provided their own form of help: those all-important games of marbles, Lego-building sessions, and late-afternoon soccer practices that kept what I was doing in perspective, in more ways than one.