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.
heart age world
My heart is moved by all I cannot save: so much has been destroyed I have to cast my lot with those who age after age, perversely, with no extraordinary power, reconstitute the world.
use-it-or-lose-it desire use
We must use what we have to invent what we desire.
threat invitations
Change is not a threat to your life, but an invitation to live.
teacher mirrors individual-strength
When someone with the authority of a teacher, say, describes the world and you are not in it, there is a moment of psychic disequilibrium, as if you looked into a mirror and saw nothing. Yet you know you exist and others like you, that this is a game with mirrors. It takes some strength of soul--and not just individual strength, but collective understanding--to resist this void, this nonbeing, into which are thrust, and to stand up, demanding to be seen and heard.
love self two
An honorable human relationship- that is, one in which two people have the right to use the word "love"- is a process, delicate, violent, often terrifying to both persons involved, a process of refining the truths they can tell each other. It is important to do this because it breaks down human self-delusion and isolation. It is important to do this because in doing so we do justice to our own complexity. It is important to do this because we can count on so few people to go that hard way with us.
darkness
The beauty of darkness is how it lets you see.
inspirational motivational feminist
The connections between and among women are the most feared, the most problematic, and the most potentially transforming force on the planet.
remember ten
A year, ten years from now, I'll remember this; not why, only that we were here like this, together.
air america bring design face fire flag heart open seen slow stopped sucked true
Open Air Museum. Seen from a train, stopped / As by design, to bring us / Face to face with the flag of our true country: / Violet-yellow, black-violet, / Its heart sucked by slow fire / O my America / This then your desire?
cost everywhere extreme imposed physical resisted social women
Heterosexuality has been forcibly and subliminally imposed on women.Yet everywhere women have resisted it, often at the cost of physical torture, imprisonment, psychosurgery, social ostracism, and extreme poverty.
looks patterns tiny
There is no 'the truth','a truth' - truth is not one thing, or even a system. It is an increasing complexity. the pattern of the carpet is a surface. When we look closely, or when we become weavers, we learn of the tiny multiple threads unseen in the overall pattern, the knots on the underside of the carpet
moving may november
It is the thirtieth of May, the thirtieth of November, a beginning or an end, we are moving into the solstice and there is so much here I still do not understand.