Adrienne Rich
Adrienne Rich
Adrienne Cecile Richwas an American poet, essayist and radical feminist. She was called "one of the most widely read and influential poets of the second half of the 20th century", and was credited with bringing "the oppression of women and lesbians to the forefront of poetic discourse."...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth16 May 1929
CityBaltimore, MD
CountryUnited States of America
use-it-or-lose-it desire use
We must use what we have to invent what we desire.
strong-women mean independent
Responsibility to yourself means refusing to let others do your thinking, talking, and naming for you; it means learning to respect and use your own brains and instincts; hence, grappling with hard work.
threat invitations
Change is not a threat to your life, but an invitation to live.
eyelashes passwords flicker
The password is a flicker of an eyelash.
splitting
I choose to love this time for once with all my intelligence -from "Splittings
fake-people memories real
Every journey into the past is complicated by delusions, false memories, false namings of real events.
dream effort vision
To seek visions, to dream dreams, is essential, and it is also essential to try new ways of living, to make room for serious experimentation, to respect the effort even where it fails.
dream memories writing
To write as if your life depended on it; to write across the chalkboard, putting up there in public the words you have dredged; sieved up in dreams, from behind screen memories, out of silence-- words you have dreaded and needed in order to know you exist.
wrecks
I came to explore the wreck.
dream knows
Poems are like dreams: in them you put what you don't know you know.
rejection heterosexuality way
Lesbian existence comprises both the breaking of a taboo and the rejection of a compulsory way of life. It is also a direct or indirect attack on the male right of access to women.
violent process honorable
An honorable human relationship ... is a process, delicate, violent, often terrifying to both persons involved, a process of refining the truths they can tell each other.
dream sleep rooms
No one sleeps in this room without the dream of a common language.
dream escaping political
When my dreams showed signs of becoming politically correct no unruly images escaping beyond borders ... then I began to wonder