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
mothers-day children eye
It's as if, in the mother's eyes, her smile, her stroking touch, the child first reads the message:'You are there!'
stories wit no-money
If we had time and no money, living by our wits, what story would you tell?
doors keys tolerance
The word revolution itself has become not only a dead relic of Leftism, but a key to the deadendedness of male politics: the revolution of a wheel which returns in the end to the same place; the revolving door of a politics which has liberated women only to use them, and only within the limits of male tolerance.
respect believe moving
I believe that words can help us move or keep us paralysed, and that our choices of language and verbal tone have something - a great deal - to do with how we live our lives and whom we end up speaking with and hearing; and that we can deflect words by trivialization, of course, but also by ritualized respect, or we can let them enter our souls and mix with the juices of our minds.
healing space one-woman
When one woman tells her truth, it makes a space for other women to tell their truths.
giving delight alive
I have an inward treasure born with me, which can keep me alive if all the extraneous delights should be withheld or offered only at a price I cannot afford to give.
real cloning tangible
Language is as real, as tangible, in our lives as streets, pipelines, telephone switchboards, microwaves, radioactivity, cloning laboratories, nuclear power stations.
knives cake mind
Your mind now, moldering like wedding-cake, heavy with useless experience, rich with suspicion, rumour, fantasy, crumbling to pieces under the knife-edge of mere fact. In the prime of your life.
hate writing night
You have to be free to play around with the notion that day might be night, love might be hate; nothing can be too sacred for the imagination to turn into its opposite or to call experimentally by another name. For writing is re-naming.
country art simple
There is no simple formula for the relationship of art to justice...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.
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.
experience language
Experience is always larger than language.
looks firsts chaos
All new learning looks at first like chaos.
political feelings body
The moment when a feeling enters the body/ is political. This touch is political