Similar paths

Steffanie D. Reed
Wed, 29 Apr 2026 13:45:22 PDT

Early in the 20th century, Muriel Rukeyser set the poetic world on its head by framing a question: 'What would happen if one woman told the truth about her life?' This, in turn, had a profound effect on other writers like Anne Sexton, Sylvia Plath, and Adrienne Rich. Now, in my place in the tradition of poetry, I offer the readers of 'Similar Paths, ' another truth of a woman's life. This speaker comes to the truths she knows through her contemplations of the natural world, her interpretations of small-town life, and her journeys into the broader world. She carefully looks at those she encounters on this journey, their motives and responses. And because this is how poetry works, the reader comes to those truths vicariously, almost simultaneously with the woman who speaks in the pages of 'Similar Paths'.