A woman in the shape of a monster / a monster in the shape of a woman / the skies are full of them
March 28, 2012 2:26 PM Subscribe
Poet Adrienne Rich, celebrated over her 60-plus-year career with the Yale Younger Poets Prize, the National Book Award, a MacArthur Fellowship, and many other awards, and known for both her vivid and original poetry and her advocacy of feminist and civil rights causes, has died at the age of 82. Read, watch, listen.
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posted by Saxon Kane at 2:33 PM on March 28, 2012
posted by Saxon Kane at 2:33 PM on March 28, 2012
And now: it is easy to forget
what I came for
among so many who have always
lived here
swaying their crenellated fans
between the reefs
and besides
you breathe differently down here.
I came to explore the wreck.
The words are purposes.
The words are maps.
I came to see the damage that was done
and the treasures that prevail.
I stroke the beam of my lamp
slowly along the flank
of something more permanent
than fish or weed
posted by juv3nal at 2:35 PM on March 28, 2012 [15 favorites]
what I came for
among so many who have always
lived here
swaying their crenellated fans
between the reefs
and besides
you breathe differently down here.
I came to explore the wreck.
The words are purposes.
The words are maps.
I came to see the damage that was done
and the treasures that prevail.
I stroke the beam of my lamp
slowly along the flank
of something more permanent
than fish or weed
posted by juv3nal at 2:35 PM on March 28, 2012 [15 favorites]
.
I dreamed I called you on the telephone
to say: Be kinder to yourself
but you were sick and would not answer
The waste of my love goes on this way
trying to save you from yourself
I have always wondered about the left-over
energy, the way water goes rushing down a hill
long after the rains have stopped
or the fire you want to go to bed from
but cannot leave, burning-down but not burnt-down
the red coals more extreme, more curious
in their flashing and dying
than you wish they were
sitting long after midnight
posted by crush-onastick at 2:37 PM on March 28, 2012 [11 favorites]
I dreamed I called you on the telephone
to say: Be kinder to yourself
but you were sick and would not answer
The waste of my love goes on this way
trying to save you from yourself
I have always wondered about the left-over
energy, the way water goes rushing down a hill
long after the rains have stopped
or the fire you want to go to bed from
but cannot leave, burning-down but not burnt-down
the red coals more extreme, more curious
in their flashing and dying
than you wish they were
sitting long after midnight
posted by crush-onastick at 2:37 PM on March 28, 2012 [11 favorites]
The words are purposes.
The words are maps.
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posted by ndfine at 2:37 PM on March 28, 2012 [1 favorite]
The words are maps.
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posted by ndfine at 2:37 PM on March 28, 2012 [1 favorite]
If this were a map
it would be the map of the last age of her life,
not a map of choices but a map of variations
on the one great choice. It would be the map by which
she could see the the end of touristic choices,
of distances blued and purpled by romance,
by which she could recognize that poetry
isn't revolution but a way of knowing
why it must come...
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posted by Iridic at 2:37 PM on March 28, 2012 [4 favorites]
it would be the map of the last age of her life,
not a map of choices but a map of variations
on the one great choice. It would be the map by which
she could see the the end of touristic choices,
of distances blued and purpled by romance,
by which she could recognize that poetry
isn't revolution but a way of knowing
why it must come...
.
posted by Iridic at 2:37 PM on March 28, 2012 [4 favorites]
Oh, I am so saddened by this news. She was one of my heroes artistically and personally. I think of this poem so often, and it makes me cry every time.
She will be deeply missed.
posted by Sidhedevil at 2:38 PM on March 28, 2012 [6 favorites]
She will be deeply missed.
posted by Sidhedevil at 2:38 PM on March 28, 2012 [6 favorites]
Dammit.
posted by Iris Gambol at 2:40 PM on March 28, 2012
posted by Iris Gambol at 2:40 PM on March 28, 2012
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Diving into the Wreck is the only poem I ever learned by heart just by listening to it, over and over again, the way you would a love song.
posted by Freyja at 2:47 PM on March 28, 2012 [1 favorite]
Diving into the Wreck is the only poem I ever learned by heart just by listening to it, over and over again, the way you would a love song.
posted by Freyja at 2:47 PM on March 28, 2012 [1 favorite]
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posted by ausdemfenster at 2:52 PM on March 28, 2012
posted by ausdemfenster at 2:52 PM on March 28, 2012
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posted by mattbucher at 2:53 PM on March 28, 2012
posted by mattbucher at 2:53 PM on March 28, 2012
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posted by TheGoodBlood at 2:53 PM on March 28, 2012
posted by TheGoodBlood at 2:53 PM on March 28, 2012
Adrienne Rich, thank you for your poetry, your truth and your feminism. We will miss you.
Dreams before Waking
Despair is the question
- Elie Wiesel
Hasta tu pais cambio. Lo has cambiado tu mismo.
- Nancy Morejon
...
At the end of winter something changes
a faint subtraction
from consolations you expected
an innocent brilliance that does not come
through the flower shops set out
once again on the pavement
their pots of tight-budded sprays
the bunches of jonquils stiff with cold
and at such a price
though someone must buy them
you study those hues as if with hunger
...
What would it mean to live
in a city whose people were changing
each other's despair into hope? --
You yourself must change it. --
what would it feel like to know
your country was changing? --
You yourself must change it. --
Though your life felt arduous
new and unmapped and strange
what would it mean to stand on the first
page to the end of despair?
posted by theora55 at 2:53 PM on March 28, 2012
Dreams before Waking
Despair is the question
- Elie Wiesel
Hasta tu pais cambio. Lo has cambiado tu mismo.
- Nancy Morejon
...
At the end of winter something changes
a faint subtraction
from consolations you expected
an innocent brilliance that does not come
through the flower shops set out
once again on the pavement
their pots of tight-budded sprays
the bunches of jonquils stiff with cold
and at such a price
though someone must buy them
you study those hues as if with hunger
...
What would it mean to live
in a city whose people were changing
each other's despair into hope? --
You yourself must change it. --
what would it feel like to know
your country was changing? --
You yourself must change it. --
Though your life felt arduous
new and unmapped and strange
what would it mean to stand on the first
page to the end of despair?
posted by theora55 at 2:53 PM on March 28, 2012
There is no simple formula for the relationship of art to justice. But I do know that art--in my own case the art of poetry--means nothing if it simply decorates the dinner table of power which holds it hostage. The radical disparities of wealth and power in America are widening at a devastating rate. A President cannot meaningfully honor certain token artists while the people at large are so dishonored. I know you have been engaged in a serious and disheartening struggle to save government funding for the arts, against those whose fear and suspicion of art is nakedly repressive. In the end, I don't think we can separate art from overall human dignity and hope. My concern for my country is inextricable from my concerns as an artist. I could not participate in a ritual which would feel so hypocritical to me.- Letter to Jane Alexander refusing the National Medal for the Arts, July 3, 1997
posted by rtha at 3:03 PM on March 28, 2012 [8 favorites]
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posted by From Bklyn at 3:09 PM on March 28, 2012
posted by From Bklyn at 3:09 PM on March 28, 2012
Oh, no. Oh.
posted by little cow make small moo at 3:10 PM on March 28, 2012
posted by little cow make small moo at 3:10 PM on March 28, 2012
Not her words, but I think she'd appreciate them:
Die knowing something. We are not here long. -- Walker Evans
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posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 3:10 PM on March 28, 2012 [2 favorites]
Die knowing something. We are not here long. -- Walker Evans
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posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 3:10 PM on March 28, 2012 [2 favorites]
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"[Art] means nothing if it simply decorates the dinner table of the power which holds it hostage."
posted by williampratt at 3:14 PM on March 28, 2012
"[Art] means nothing if it simply decorates the dinner table of the power which holds it hostage."
posted by williampratt at 3:14 PM on March 28, 2012
Aunt Jennifer's Tigers
Aunt Jennifer's tigers prance across a screen,
Bright topaz denizens of a world of green.
They do not fear the men beneath the tree;
They pace in sleek chivalric certainty.
Aunt Jennifer's fingers fluttering through her wool
Find even the ivory needle hard to pull.
The massive weight of Uncle's wedding band
Sits heavily upon Aunt Jennifer's hand.
When Aunt is dead, her terrified hands will lie
Still ringed with ordeals she was mastered by.
The tigers in the panel that she made
Will go on prancing, proud and unafraid.
posted by gingerbeer at 3:15 PM on March 28, 2012 [6 favorites]
Aunt Jennifer's tigers prance across a screen,
Bright topaz denizens of a world of green.
They do not fear the men beneath the tree;
They pace in sleek chivalric certainty.
Aunt Jennifer's fingers fluttering through her wool
Find even the ivory needle hard to pull.
The massive weight of Uncle's wedding band
Sits heavily upon Aunt Jennifer's hand.
When Aunt is dead, her terrified hands will lie
Still ringed with ordeals she was mastered by.
The tigers in the panel that she made
Will go on prancing, proud and unafraid.
posted by gingerbeer at 3:15 PM on March 28, 2012 [6 favorites]
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posted by Tesseractive at 3:17 PM on March 28, 2012
posted by Tesseractive at 3:17 PM on March 28, 2012
not somewhere else, but here,
our country moving closer to its own truth and dread,
its own ways of making people disappear.
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posted by holdkris99 at 3:19 PM on March 28, 2012 [2 favorites]
our country moving closer to its own truth and dread,
its own ways of making people disappear.
.
posted by holdkris99 at 3:19 PM on March 28, 2012 [2 favorites]
Was lucky enough to have spoken with her after a reading many years ago. She will be missed.
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posted by Sir BoBoMonkey Pooflinger Esquire III at 3:21 PM on March 28, 2012
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posted by Sir BoBoMonkey Pooflinger Esquire III at 3:21 PM on March 28, 2012
As sad as the circumstances of their posting are, this is a wonderful collection of links, thank you, aught.
posted by gladly at 3:22 PM on March 28, 2012
posted by gladly at 3:22 PM on March 28, 2012
My younger stepdaughter shares her first name. I didn't have anything to do with that but I've always been pleased that she's in such august company.
posted by dlugoczaj at 3:28 PM on March 28, 2012
posted by dlugoczaj at 3:28 PM on March 28, 2012
A Valediction Forbidding Mourning
My swirling wants. Your frozen lips.
The grammar turned and attacked me.
Themes, written under duress.
Emptiness of the notations.
They gave me a drug that slowed the healing of wounds.
I want you to see this before I leave:
the experience of repetition as death
the failure of criticism to locate the pain
the poster in the bus that said:
my bleeding is under control
A red plant in a cemetary of plastic wreaths.
A last attempt: the language is a dialect called metaphor.
These images go unglossed: hair, glacier, flashlight.
When I think of a landscape I am thinking of a time.
When I talk of taking a trip I mean forever.
I could say: those mountains have a meaning
but further than that I could not say.
To do something very common, in my own way.
.
I remember when my first girlfriend and I were introduced to Adrienne Rich by our Ancient Greek A-Level teacher. We were really starved of honest, non-pulpy literature that spoke about our lives, so when we discovered writers like Rich or Sappho or Patricia Highsmith we glutted ourselves on them. We read Twenty-One Love Songs to each other in my single bed on Sunday mornings before my parents called us for breakfast. When we went off to separate universities I hand-embroidered a pillowcase for her with the lines:
I can hear your breath tonight, I know how your face
lies upturned
There are lines in Rich I can't read now without thinking of Jessie's body, the way she smelled after sex, the way her cheeks felt when I kissed her, her ridged selfharm scars. Part of this is simple metonymy, but partly I think it's because she, Adrienne Rich, gave me words to express my desire, a language that seemed to make possible what all the languages I had previously learned had excluded or ruled out.
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posted by Acheman at 3:28 PM on March 28, 2012 [23 favorites]
My swirling wants. Your frozen lips.
The grammar turned and attacked me.
Themes, written under duress.
Emptiness of the notations.
They gave me a drug that slowed the healing of wounds.
I want you to see this before I leave:
the experience of repetition as death
the failure of criticism to locate the pain
the poster in the bus that said:
my bleeding is under control
A red plant in a cemetary of plastic wreaths.
A last attempt: the language is a dialect called metaphor.
These images go unglossed: hair, glacier, flashlight.
When I think of a landscape I am thinking of a time.
When I talk of taking a trip I mean forever.
I could say: those mountains have a meaning
but further than that I could not say.
To do something very common, in my own way.
.
I remember when my first girlfriend and I were introduced to Adrienne Rich by our Ancient Greek A-Level teacher. We were really starved of honest, non-pulpy literature that spoke about our lives, so when we discovered writers like Rich or Sappho or Patricia Highsmith we glutted ourselves on them. We read Twenty-One Love Songs to each other in my single bed on Sunday mornings before my parents called us for breakfast. When we went off to separate universities I hand-embroidered a pillowcase for her with the lines:
I can hear your breath tonight, I know how your face
lies upturned
There are lines in Rich I can't read now without thinking of Jessie's body, the way she smelled after sex, the way her cheeks felt when I kissed her, her ridged selfharm scars. Part of this is simple metonymy, but partly I think it's because she, Adrienne Rich, gave me words to express my desire, a language that seemed to make possible what all the languages I had previously learned had excluded or ruled out.
.
posted by Acheman at 3:28 PM on March 28, 2012 [23 favorites]
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posted by velvet winter at 3:30 PM on March 28, 2012
posted by velvet winter at 3:30 PM on March 28, 2012
I'm at work and just quickly checked FB and let out a uncontrollable moan/howl when I saw the news. I feel bereft.
posted by jokeefe at 3:37 PM on March 28, 2012
posted by jokeefe at 3:37 PM on March 28, 2012
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posted by exlotuseater at 3:39 PM on March 28, 2012
posted by exlotuseater at 3:39 PM on March 28, 2012
A simple dot is not enough.
A field of dots would not be enough.
Her bio at the Poetry Foundation site. Crying now.
posted by jokeefe at 3:41 PM on March 28, 2012
A field of dots would not be enough.
Her bio at the Poetry Foundation site. Crying now.
posted by jokeefe at 3:41 PM on March 28, 2012
The Ninth Symphony of Beethoven Understood At Last As a Sexual Message
A man in terror of impotence
or infertility, not knowing the difference
a man trying to tell something
howling from the climacteric
music of the entirely
isolated soul
yelling at Joy from the tunnel of the ego
music without the ghost
of another person in it, music
trying to tell something the man
does not want out, would keep if he could
gagged and bound and flogged with chords of Joy
where everything is silence and the
beating of a bloody fist upon
a splintered table
posted by thelonius at 3:46 PM on March 28, 2012 [1 favorite]
A man in terror of impotence
or infertility, not knowing the difference
a man trying to tell something
howling from the climacteric
music of the entirely
isolated soul
yelling at Joy from the tunnel of the ego
music without the ghost
of another person in it, music
trying to tell something the man
does not want out, would keep if he could
gagged and bound and flogged with chords of Joy
where everything is silence and the
beating of a bloody fist upon
a splintered table
posted by thelonius at 3:46 PM on March 28, 2012 [1 favorite]
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posted by cybercoitus interruptus at 3:53 PM on March 28, 2012
posted by cybercoitus interruptus at 3:53 PM on March 28, 2012
Her book, Of Woman Born, opened the eyes of this young man
thirty years ago. And I am grateful.
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posted by quazichimp at 3:56 PM on March 28, 2012
thirty years ago. And I am grateful.
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posted by quazichimp at 3:56 PM on March 28, 2012
The one crushonastick posted is the one I can never forget.
An amazing amazing great poet. Rest in Peace.
posted by bukvich at 3:59 PM on March 28, 2012
An amazing amazing great poet. Rest in Peace.
posted by bukvich at 3:59 PM on March 28, 2012
I always read that poem when I (too often) need to be kinder to myself.
posted by bukvich at 4:00 PM on March 28, 2012
posted by bukvich at 4:00 PM on March 28, 2012
I used to work at the company that publishes her poetry. When you work in publishing, particularly in editorial, you quickly become inured to putting writers on pedestals. After all, you see their work with some (if not all) of its warts still on, or, if you don't work on their books directly, you hear about them from your colleagues: this author's work was a pain to edit, that author calls their editor at all hours, this other author can't use a word processor, etc.
In the year I worked there, I don't think I ever heard anything about Adrienne Rich that didn't boil down to, "Isn't it wonderful that we get to publish her work, and that we get to help these poems go out into the world?"
posted by ocherdraco at 4:01 PM on March 28, 2012 [5 favorites]
In the year I worked there, I don't think I ever heard anything about Adrienne Rich that didn't boil down to, "Isn't it wonderful that we get to publish her work, and that we get to help these poems go out into the world?"
posted by ocherdraco at 4:01 PM on March 28, 2012 [5 favorites]
When it came time for us high school seniors to give individual presentations on a selected 20th century poet, I didn't need a moment to choose. Of course it would be Adrienne Rich. She meant so much to me at a particular point in my life, and I never forgot her.
I knew she had been ill for a long time and feared the moment when I would hear the news of her death. My heart sank as soon as I saw that this FPP was about her.
posted by foxy_hedgehog at 4:14 PM on March 28, 2012
I knew she had been ill for a long time and feared the moment when I would hear the news of her death. My heart sank as soon as I saw that this FPP was about her.
posted by foxy_hedgehog at 4:14 PM on March 28, 2012
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posted by myownlostrib at 4:15 PM on March 28, 2012
posted by myownlostrib at 4:15 PM on March 28, 2012
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posted by vitabellosi at 4:18 PM on March 28, 2012
posted by vitabellosi at 4:18 PM on March 28, 2012
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posted by c'mon sea legs at 4:21 PM on March 28, 2012
posted by c'mon sea legs at 4:21 PM on March 28, 2012
Oh man. One of my favorite poets, and also a really good speaker. She'll be missed.
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posted by whir at 4:45 PM on March 28, 2012
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posted by whir at 4:45 PM on March 28, 2012
This is one of the first times on Metafilter that I have felt moved enough to need to add my own condolences to those of the crowd.
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posted by hepta at 4:47 PM on March 28, 2012
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posted by hepta at 4:47 PM on March 28, 2012
[...] but really I have nothing but myself
to go by; nothing
stands in the realm of pure necessity
except what my hands can hold.
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posted by faineant at 4:59 PM on March 28, 2012
to go by; nothing
stands in the realm of pure necessity
except what my hands can hold.
.
posted by faineant at 4:59 PM on March 28, 2012
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...Lying is done with words and also with silence.
She was a major influence on my life and I am so very sad..
posted by Isadorady at 5:12 PM on March 28, 2012
...Lying is done with words and also with silence.
She was a major influence on my life and I am so very sad..
posted by Isadorady at 5:12 PM on March 28, 2012
Here is Margaret Atwood's blurb off the back of my copy of Diving into the Wreck:
Diving into the Wreck is one of those rare books that force you to decide not just what you think of it, but what you think about yourself. It is a book that takes risks, and forces the reader to take them also . . . You feel about her best images, her best myths, that nobody else writes quite like this.
posted by bukvich at 5:20 PM on March 28, 2012
Diving into the Wreck is one of those rare books that force you to decide not just what you think of it, but what you think about yourself. It is a book that takes risks, and forces the reader to take them also . . . You feel about her best images, her best myths, that nobody else writes quite like this.
posted by bukvich at 5:20 PM on March 28, 2012
Tonight I think
no poetry
will serve.
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posted by mothershock at 5:39 PM on March 28, 2012 [3 favorites]
no poetry
will serve.
.
posted by mothershock at 5:39 PM on March 28, 2012 [3 favorites]
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posted by Ink-stained wretch at 5:52 PM on March 28, 2012
posted by Ink-stained wretch at 5:52 PM on March 28, 2012
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posted by en forme de poire at 6:22 PM on March 28, 2012
posted by en forme de poire at 6:22 PM on March 28, 2012
- "I believe that poems are made of words and the breathing between them: that is the medium. I believe as well that poetry isn't language in the abstract but language as in: I want to learn your language. You need more than one language to get by in this city. To learn a language is to earn a soul. She is teaching English as a second language. It is forbidden to use that language in this workplace. A dead language is one that is no longer spoken; it can only be read.
- We need poetry as living language, the core of every language, something that is still spoken, aloud or in the mind, muttered in secret, subversive, reaching around corners, crumpled into a pocket, performed to a community, read aloud to the dying, recited by heart, scratched or sprayed on a wall. That kind of language."
posted by ronv at 6:37 PM on March 28, 2012
[...]I dreamed you were a poem,
I say, a poem I wanted to show someone…
and I laugh and fall dreaming again
of the desire to show you to everyone I love,
to move openly together
in the pull of gravity, which is not simple,
which carries the feathered grass a long way down the upbreathing air.
-Twenty-One Love Poems, II, Adrienne Rich
posted by epj at 6:50 PM on March 28, 2012 [3 favorites]
I say, a poem I wanted to show someone…
and I laugh and fall dreaming again
of the desire to show you to everyone I love,
to move openly together
in the pull of gravity, which is not simple,
which carries the feathered grass a long way down the upbreathing air.
-Twenty-One Love Poems, II, Adrienne Rich
posted by epj at 6:50 PM on March 28, 2012 [3 favorites]
Delta
If you have taken this rubble for my past
raking through the fragments you could sell
know that I long ago moved on
deeper into the heart of the matter
If you think you can grasp me, think again:
my story flows in more than one direction
a delta springing from the river bed
with its five fingers spread
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posted by trip and a half at 6:55 PM on March 28, 2012 [2 favorites]
If you have taken this rubble for my past
raking through the fragments you could sell
know that I long ago moved on
deeper into the heart of the matter
If you think you can grasp me, think again:
my story flows in more than one direction
a delta springing from the river bed
with its five fingers spread
.
posted by trip and a half at 6:55 PM on March 28, 2012 [2 favorites]
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posted by Wuggie Norple at 7:45 PM on March 28, 2012
posted by Wuggie Norple at 7:45 PM on March 28, 2012
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posted by Fibognocchi at 7:52 PM on March 28, 2012
posted by Fibognocchi at 7:52 PM on March 28, 2012
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posted by likeatoaster at 8:05 PM on March 28, 2012
posted by likeatoaster at 8:05 PM on March 28, 2012
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posted by amusebuche at 8:15 PM on March 28, 2012
posted by amusebuche at 8:15 PM on March 28, 2012
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posted by mistersquid at 8:18 PM on March 28, 2012
posted by mistersquid at 8:18 PM on March 28, 2012
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posted by eustacescrubb at 8:39 PM on March 28, 2012
posted by eustacescrubb at 8:39 PM on March 28, 2012
There's a place between two stands of trees where the grass grows uphill
and the old revolutionary road breaks off into shadows
near a meeting-house abandoned by the persecuted
who disappeared into those shadows.
I've walked there picking mushrooms at the edge of dread, but don't be fooled
this isn't a Russian poem, this is not somewhere else but here,
our country moving closer to its own truth and dread,
its own ways of making people disappear.
I won't tell you where the place is, the dark mesh of the woods
meeting the unmarked strip of light—
ghost-ridden crossroads, leafmold paradise:
I know already who wants to buy it, sell it, make it disappear.
And I won't tell you where it is, so why do I tell you
anything? Because you still listen, because in times like these
to have you listen at all, it's necessary
to talk about trees.
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posted by pickingupsticks at 10:00 PM on March 28, 2012 [3 favorites]
and the old revolutionary road breaks off into shadows
near a meeting-house abandoned by the persecuted
who disappeared into those shadows.
I've walked there picking mushrooms at the edge of dread, but don't be fooled
this isn't a Russian poem, this is not somewhere else but here,
our country moving closer to its own truth and dread,
its own ways of making people disappear.
I won't tell you where the place is, the dark mesh of the woods
meeting the unmarked strip of light—
ghost-ridden crossroads, leafmold paradise:
I know already who wants to buy it, sell it, make it disappear.
And I won't tell you where it is, so why do I tell you
anything? Because you still listen, because in times like these
to have you listen at all, it's necessary
to talk about trees.
.
posted by pickingupsticks at 10:00 PM on March 28, 2012 [3 favorites]
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Today I was reading about Marie Curie:
she must have known she suffered from radiation sickness
her body bombarded for years by the element
she had purified
It seems she denied to the end
the source of the cataracts on her eyes
the cracked and suppurating skin of her finger-ends
till she could no longer hold a test-tube or a pencil
She died a famous woman denying
her wounds
denying
her wounds came from the same source as her power
posted by andraste at 10:35 PM on March 28, 2012 [4 favorites]
Today I was reading about Marie Curie:
she must have known she suffered from radiation sickness
her body bombarded for years by the element
she had purified
It seems she denied to the end
the source of the cataracts on her eyes
the cracked and suppurating skin of her finger-ends
till she could no longer hold a test-tube or a pencil
She died a famous woman denying
her wounds
denying
her wounds came from the same source as her power
posted by andraste at 10:35 PM on March 28, 2012 [4 favorites]
A friend posted on Facebook, "It is hard to wish 'Rest in Peace' foe Adrienne Rich, who always wanted more liveness, more disturbance, even in love."
!
posted by LMGM at 11:30 PM on March 28, 2012
!
posted by LMGM at 11:30 PM on March 28, 2012
As an undergrad, I read a lot of Richs work. It's been years though. I'm an economist now, and in reading about her, I came across that she was married to an Econ professor named Carey who wrote a book about the antebellum south who killed himself. I'd be interested in reading more about their marriage, since it's poetry and economics and marriage and apparently considerable sadness -- all of which i understand. Did she write much about him and their marriage or maybe he himself? Why did he leave Harvard? I saw they moved to new York.
posted by scunning at 12:16 AM on March 29, 2012
posted by scunning at 12:16 AM on March 29, 2012
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posted by bardophile at 2:27 AM on March 29, 2012
posted by bardophile at 2:27 AM on March 29, 2012
Where's a good place to start with her work?
posted by Ian A.T. at 5:52 PM on March 28 [+] [!]
I didn't see anyone else address this, so, I'll give it a try. This sort of thing is always subjective, but her pre-1980 poetry collections
- Snapshots of a Daughter-in-Law
- The Will to Change
- Diving Into the Wreck
- The Dream of a Common Language
set the terms of what she was about as a poet and critical thinker, and are certainly required reading for anyone interested in 20th-c. poetry. (They were certainly very important books for me as a young poet.)
Her essay collections are as important as her poetry, however, and
- Of Woman Born
- On Lies, Secrets and Silence
- Blood, Bread, and Poetry
are also required reading for anyone interested in poetry or feminism or social justice in general.
The only two books of her later poetry I have (in the 80s I kind of made the swerve into language poetry and more formally-experimental work at the expense of the big names of mainstream free verse, in terms of what's on my bookshelves) are
- Dark Fields of the Republic
- An Atlas of the Difficult World
but I would certainly recommend these books as well. I assume a great big selected edition of her later works will appear in the next year that will include the best of her later decades as well, certainly something I will look for.
As I typed this, NPR's obituary for AR came and went on the radio in the next room.
posted by aught at 5:01 AM on March 29, 2012 [4 favorites]
posted by Ian A.T. at 5:52 PM on March 28 [+] [!]
I didn't see anyone else address this, so, I'll give it a try. This sort of thing is always subjective, but her pre-1980 poetry collections
- Snapshots of a Daughter-in-Law
- The Will to Change
- Diving Into the Wreck
- The Dream of a Common Language
set the terms of what she was about as a poet and critical thinker, and are certainly required reading for anyone interested in 20th-c. poetry. (They were certainly very important books for me as a young poet.)
Her essay collections are as important as her poetry, however, and
- Of Woman Born
- On Lies, Secrets and Silence
- Blood, Bread, and Poetry
are also required reading for anyone interested in poetry or feminism or social justice in general.
The only two books of her later poetry I have (in the 80s I kind of made the swerve into language poetry and more formally-experimental work at the expense of the big names of mainstream free verse, in terms of what's on my bookshelves) are
- Dark Fields of the Republic
- An Atlas of the Difficult World
but I would certainly recommend these books as well. I assume a great big selected edition of her later works will appear in the next year that will include the best of her later decades as well, certainly something I will look for.
As I typed this, NPR's obituary for AR came and went on the radio in the next room.
posted by aught at 5:01 AM on March 29, 2012 [4 favorites]
Also, quick cite that this is the poem the FPP title is taken from ("Planetarium"), which is one of my very favorite poems, by her or anyone else.
posted by aught at 5:04 AM on March 29, 2012
posted by aught at 5:04 AM on March 29, 2012
Thank you, everyone, who quoted your favorite Adrienne Rich poetry. I remember reading her in college, but I see now that I absolutely must read her again. Some of those poems quoted above are shake-me-to-the-core powerful.
posted by math at 7:28 AM on March 29, 2012 [1 favorite]
posted by math at 7:28 AM on March 29, 2012 [1 favorite]
Did she write much about him and their marriage or maybe he himself? Why did he leave Harvard? I saw they moved to new York.
From the NYTimes article:
By 1970, partly because she had begun, inwardly, to acknowledge her erotic love of women, Ms. Rich and her husband had grown estranged. That autumn, he died of a gunshot wound to the head; the death was ruled a suicide. To the end of her life, Ms. Rich rarely spoke of it.
posted by peacheater at 8:49 AM on March 29, 2012
From the NYTimes article:
By 1970, partly because she had begun, inwardly, to acknowledge her erotic love of women, Ms. Rich and her husband had grown estranged. That autumn, he died of a gunshot wound to the head; the death was ruled a suicide. To the end of her life, Ms. Rich rarely spoke of it.
posted by peacheater at 8:49 AM on March 29, 2012
To the end of her life, Ms. Rich rarely spoke of it.
She wrote Tattered Kaddish, though.
Tattered Kaddish
Taurean reaper of the wild apple field
messenger from earthmire gleaning
transcripts of fog
in the nineteenth year and the eleventh month
speak your tattered Kaddish for all suicides:
Praise to life though it crumbled in like a tunnel
on ones we knew and loved
Praise to life though its windows blew shut
on the breathing-room of ones we knew and loved
Praise to life though ones we knew and loved
loved it badly, too well, and not enough
Praise to life though it tightened like a knot
on the hearts of ones we thought we knew loved us
Praise to life giving room and reason
to ones we knew and loved who felt unpraisable
Praise to them, how they loved it, when they could.
posted by Acheman at 9:16 AM on March 29, 2012 [2 favorites]
She wrote Tattered Kaddish, though.
Tattered Kaddish
Taurean reaper of the wild apple field
messenger from earthmire gleaning
transcripts of fog
in the nineteenth year and the eleventh month
speak your tattered Kaddish for all suicides:
Praise to life though it crumbled in like a tunnel
on ones we knew and loved
Praise to life though its windows blew shut
on the breathing-room of ones we knew and loved
Praise to life though ones we knew and loved
loved it badly, too well, and not enough
Praise to life though it tightened like a knot
on the hearts of ones we thought we knew loved us
Praise to life giving room and reason
to ones we knew and loved who felt unpraisable
Praise to them, how they loved it, when they could.
posted by Acheman at 9:16 AM on March 29, 2012 [2 favorites]
.
posted by joannemerriam at 9:16 AM on March 29, 2012
posted by joannemerriam at 9:16 AM on March 29, 2012
I dug my copy of The Dream of a Common Language out of the box of books last night. (1st edition, maybe? Bought at a used bookstore in the mid90s.) It fell open to 21 Love Poems (#7-10) - from VIII, one of my favorites:
Well, that's finished. The woman who cherishedposted by epersonae at 9:22 AM on March 29, 2012 [3 favorites]
her suffering is dead. I am her descendant.
I love the scar-tissue she handed on to me,
but I want to go on from here with you
fighting the temptation to make a career of pain.
And then I realize that I copied the whole poem into my blog almost eight years ago.
posted by epersonae at 9:27 AM on March 29, 2012
posted by epersonae at 9:27 AM on March 29, 2012
.
I love her Fantasia for Elvira Shatayev (link to random lj that has the poem)
posted by rmd1023 at 10:16 AM on March 29, 2012
I love her Fantasia for Elvira Shatayev (link to random lj that has the poem)
posted by rmd1023 at 10:16 AM on March 29, 2012
I had forgotten this part until I read it again in the New York Times obit:
In 1997, in a widely reported act, Ms. Rich declined the National Medal of Arts, the United States government’s highest award bestowed upon artists. In a letter to Jane Alexander, then chairwoman of the National Endowment for the Arts, which administers the award, she expressed her dismay, amid the “increasingly brutal impact of racial and economic injustice,” that the government had chosen to honor “a few token artists while the people at large are so dishonored.”
posted by bukvich at 10:28 AM on March 29, 2012 [1 favorite]
In 1997, in a widely reported act, Ms. Rich declined the National Medal of Arts, the United States government’s highest award bestowed upon artists. In a letter to Jane Alexander, then chairwoman of the National Endowment for the Arts, which administers the award, she expressed her dismay, amid the “increasingly brutal impact of racial and economic injustice,” that the government had chosen to honor “a few token artists while the people at large are so dishonored.”
posted by bukvich at 10:28 AM on March 29, 2012 [1 favorite]
pickingupsticks, that is a favorite. here she is reading it:
What Kind of Times Are These?
posted by mrgrimm at 10:40 AM on March 29, 2012 [1 favorite]
What Kind of Times Are These?
posted by mrgrimm at 10:40 AM on March 29, 2012 [1 favorite]
I'll always be partial to 'From an Atlas of the Difficult World,' which I think is the best single piece of writing to show how scope and breadth can expand and contract--even turning back on itself to include the writer herself:
From an Atlas of the Difficult World
I know you are reading this poem
late, before leaving your office
of the one intense yellow lamp-spot and the darkening window
in the lassitude of a building faded to quiet
long after rush-hour. I know you are reading this poem
standing up in a bookstore far from the ocean
on a grey day of early spring, faint flakes driven
across the plains' enormous spaces around you.
I know you are reading this poem
in a room where too much has happened for you to bear
where the bedclothes lie in stagnant coils on the bed
and the open valise speaks of flight
but you cannot leave yet. I know you are reading this poem
as the underground train loses momentum and before running
up the stairs
toward a new kind of love
your life has never allowed.
I know you are reading this poem by the light
of the television screen where soundless images jerk and slide
while you wait for the newscast from the intifada.
I know you are reading this poem in a waiting-room
of eyes met and unmeeting, of identity with strangers.
I know you are reading this poem by fluorescent light
in the boredom and fatigue of the young who are counted out,
count themselves out, at too early an age. I know
you are reading this poem through your failing sight, the thick
lens enlarging these letters beyond all meaning yet you read on
because even the alphabet is precious.
I know you are reading this poem as you pace beside the stove
warming milk, a crying child on your shoulder, a book in your
hand
because life is short and you too are thirsty.
I know you are reading this poem which is not in your language
guessing at some words while others keep you reading
and I want to know which words they are.
I know you are reading this poem listening for something, torn
between bitterness and hope
turning back once again to the task you cannot refuse.
I know you are reading this poem because there is nothing else
left to read
there where you have landed, stripped as you are.
posted by yellowcandy at 10:56 AM on March 29, 2012 [7 favorites]
From an Atlas of the Difficult World
I know you are reading this poem
late, before leaving your office
of the one intense yellow lamp-spot and the darkening window
in the lassitude of a building faded to quiet
long after rush-hour. I know you are reading this poem
standing up in a bookstore far from the ocean
on a grey day of early spring, faint flakes driven
across the plains' enormous spaces around you.
I know you are reading this poem
in a room where too much has happened for you to bear
where the bedclothes lie in stagnant coils on the bed
and the open valise speaks of flight
but you cannot leave yet. I know you are reading this poem
as the underground train loses momentum and before running
up the stairs
toward a new kind of love
your life has never allowed.
I know you are reading this poem by the light
of the television screen where soundless images jerk and slide
while you wait for the newscast from the intifada.
I know you are reading this poem in a waiting-room
of eyes met and unmeeting, of identity with strangers.
I know you are reading this poem by fluorescent light
in the boredom and fatigue of the young who are counted out,
count themselves out, at too early an age. I know
you are reading this poem through your failing sight, the thick
lens enlarging these letters beyond all meaning yet you read on
because even the alphabet is precious.
I know you are reading this poem as you pace beside the stove
warming milk, a crying child on your shoulder, a book in your
hand
because life is short and you too are thirsty.
I know you are reading this poem which is not in your language
guessing at some words while others keep you reading
and I want to know which words they are.
I know you are reading this poem listening for something, torn
between bitterness and hope
turning back once again to the task you cannot refuse.
I know you are reading this poem because there is nothing else
left to read
there where you have landed, stripped as you are.
posted by yellowcandy at 10:56 AM on March 29, 2012 [7 favorites]
.
posted by Lutoslawski at 12:54 PM on March 29, 2012
posted by Lutoslawski at 12:54 PM on March 29, 2012
Thanks, aught! I have a few gift certificates to the local bookshop that will be going towards your recommendations.
This morning, a good friend sent me her favorite Rich poem, which hasn't been added to this thread yet:
Storm Warnings
The glass has been falling all the afternoon,
And knowing better than the instrument
What winds are walking overhead, what zone
Of grey unrest is moving across the land,
I leave the book upon a pillowed chair
And walk from window to closed window, watching
Boughs strain against the sky
And think again, as often when the air
Moves inward toward a silent core of waiting,
How with a single purpose time has traveled
By secret currents of the undiscerned
Into this polar realm. Weather abroad
And weather in the heart alike come on
Regardless of prediction.
Between foreseeing and averting change
Lies all the mastery of elements
Which clocks and weatherglasses cannot alter.
Time in the hand is not control of time,
Nor shattered fragments of an instrument
A proof against the wind; the wind will rise,
We can only close the shutters.
I draw the curtains as the sky goes black
And set a match to candles sheathed in glass
Against the keyhole draught, the insistent whine
Of weather through the unsealed aperture.
This is our sole defense against the season;
These are the things we have learned to do
Who live in troubled regions.
posted by Ian A.T. at 1:46 PM on March 29, 2012 [1 favorite]
This morning, a good friend sent me her favorite Rich poem, which hasn't been added to this thread yet:
Storm Warnings
The glass has been falling all the afternoon,
And knowing better than the instrument
What winds are walking overhead, what zone
Of grey unrest is moving across the land,
I leave the book upon a pillowed chair
And walk from window to closed window, watching
Boughs strain against the sky
And think again, as often when the air
Moves inward toward a silent core of waiting,
How with a single purpose time has traveled
By secret currents of the undiscerned
Into this polar realm. Weather abroad
And weather in the heart alike come on
Regardless of prediction.
Between foreseeing and averting change
Lies all the mastery of elements
Which clocks and weatherglasses cannot alter.
Time in the hand is not control of time,
Nor shattered fragments of an instrument
A proof against the wind; the wind will rise,
We can only close the shutters.
I draw the curtains as the sky goes black
And set a match to candles sheathed in glass
Against the keyhole draught, the insistent whine
Of weather through the unsealed aperture.
This is our sole defense against the season;
These are the things we have learned to do
Who live in troubled regions.
posted by Ian A.T. at 1:46 PM on March 29, 2012 [1 favorite]
I just purchased What is Found There: Notebooks on Poetry and Politics. My work suffers because of it; I cannot set it down.
...When I began this letter, Arturo, you were still living, though life was becoming a terrible effort. Well, our conversation goes on, as we promised each other. Tenderly and angrily and with laughter. "There is no death, only dying," you said in your not about one of my poems. And I still need to ask: Does this make sense to you? -Adrienne
Gah!
posted by psylosyren at 3:31 PM on March 29, 2012 [1 favorite]
...When I began this letter, Arturo, you were still living, though life was becoming a terrible effort. Well, our conversation goes on, as we promised each other. Tenderly and angrily and with laughter. "There is no death, only dying," you said in your not about one of my poems. And I still need to ask: Does this make sense to you? -Adrienne
Gah!
posted by psylosyren at 3:31 PM on March 29, 2012 [1 favorite]
Psylosyren, if the Arturo mentioned in that is a reference to Arturo Bandini (John Fante's alter ego, in the ridiculous good, Ask the Dust, The Road to Los Angelos and Wait Until Spring, Bandini), my literary universe would super rocked.
Just these poems here people are putting up in tribute to AR, each one a revelation and a language-miracle. Goddamn.
posted by Skygazer at 4:13 AM on March 31, 2012
Just these poems here people are putting up in tribute to AR, each one a revelation and a language-miracle. Goddamn.
posted by Skygazer at 4:13 AM on March 31, 2012
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posted by LobsterMitten at 2:31 PM on March 28, 2012