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
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.
splitting
I choose to love this time for once with all my intelligence -from "Splittings
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.
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
greed may littles
We may feel bitterly how little our poems can do in the face of seemingly out-of-control technological power and seemingly limitless corporate greed, yet it has always been true that poetry can break isolation, show us to ourselves when we are outlawed or made invisible, remind us of beauty where no beauty seems possible, remind us of kinship where all is represented as separation.
kind beast turns
What kind of beast would turn its life into words?
loser responsible ends
If I cling to circumstances I could feel not responsible. Only she who says she did not choose, is the loser in the end.
maps language
A language is a map of our failures
dream struggle desire
The unconscious wants truth, as the body does. The complexity and fecundity of dreams come from the complexity and fecundity of the unconscious struggling to fulfill that desire. The complexity and fecundity of poetry come from the same struggle.