Francesca Faridany reads "Myth" by Muriel Rukeyser

In celebration of National Poetry Month, every day we're posting a new poem from the spoken-word album Poetic License, a three-CD set that features one hundred performers of stage and screen reading one hundred poems selected by the actors themselves. From Shakespeare and Dickinson to Lucille Clifton and Allen Ginsberg, the lineup spans contemporary American poetry and classics of the Western canon.

Muriel Rukeyser (1913–1980), a native New Yorker who in her work and life acted against sociopolitical injustices in the United States and abroad, published more than thirty books of poetry, prose, and plays. Her poetry collections include Elegies (New Directions, 1949), Body of Waking (Harper, 1948), Breaking Open (Random House, 1973), The Gates (McGraw Hill, 1976), and Theory of Flight, which won the Yale Series of Younger Poets prize in 1935.

Francesca Faridany, who appeared most recently on Broadway in The 39 Steps, has played in classical theater productions such as Molière's Don Juan and Fraülein Else, which the actress adapted for stage from the 1924 novella by Arthur Schnitzler.

"Myth" by Muriel Rukeyser, from Poetic License produced by Glen Roven. Copyright © 2010 by GPR Records. Used with permission of GPR Records.