Abstract Muriel Rukeyser's book of poetry, The Book of the Dead (1938), focuses on detaling the industrial tragedy of the Hawk's Nest Tunnel Disaster in Gauley Bridge, West Virginia. This thesis examines the poet's use of documentary poetics as a channel for witness-bearing to victims of the tragedy. Rukeyser uses testimonial documents, doctors' reports, and interviews to support her overview of the tragic events through her writing. Several of Rukeyser's twenty...