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
fall mean responsibility
Responsibility to yourself means that you don't fall for shallow and easy solutions-it means that you refuse to sell your talents and aspirations short.
teacher psychics mirrors
When someone with the authority of a teacher describes the world and you’re not in it, there’s a moment of psychic disequilibrium, as if you looked into a mirror and saw nothing.
suffering nerves resentment
It is the suffering of ambivalence: the murderous alternation between bitter resentment and raw-edged nerves, and blissful gratification and tenderness
mind trying shapes
I am an instrument in the shape/ of a woman trying to translate pulsations/ into images for the relief of the body/ and the reconstruction of the mind.
religious law giving
One does not give birth in a void, but rather in a cultural and political context. Laws, professional codes, religious sanctions, and ethnic traditions all affect women's choices concerning childbirth.
desire might revolutionary
A revolutionary poem will not tell you who or when to kill, what and when to burn, or even how to theorize. It reminds you... where and when and how you are living and might live, it is a wick of desire.
truth integrity liars
Lying is done with words and also with silence.
moving privilege our-words
We move but our words stand become responsible for more than we intended and this is verbal privilege
love fever
We who were loved will never unlive that crippling fever.
running thinking romance
We might possess every technological resource... but if our language is inadequate, our vision remains formless, our thinking and feeling are still running in the old cycles, our process may be 'revolutionary' but not transformative.
thinking one-direction rivers
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.
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 knows
Poems are like dreams: in them you put what you don't know you know.
truth want-something speak
The unconscious wants truth. It ceases to speak to those who want something else more than truth.