When an influential poet passes out of this world and into the next, all plans are set aside to pay tribute. In this case, Adrienne Rich — one of the most influential feminists and poets of her time — died on March 27 at the age of 82.
She has been compared to Betty Friedan, who wrote The Feminine Mystique, by the New York Times and others. Beth Kephart has even been touched by Rich’s poetry, including one of my favorites in her post honoring her. She has been decried and praised for her brash poetry against war and the political world, and she once famously said that she could not accept the National Medal of Arts from the Clinton Administration because “I could not accept such an award from President Clinton or this White House because the very meaning of art, as I understand it, is incompatible with the cynical politics of this administration. [Art] means nothing if it simply decorates the dinner table of the power which holds it hostage.”
Tonight No Poetry Will Serve from Poets.org Saw you walking barefoot taking a long look at the new moon's eyelid later spread sleep-fallen, naked in your dark hair asleep but not oblivious of the unslept unsleeping elsewhere Tonight I think no poetry will serve Syntax of rendition: verb pilots the plane adverb modifies action verb force-feeds noun submerges the subject noun is choking verb disgraced goes on doing now diagram the sentence
- Poet Adrienne Rich
From her hometown in Baltimore, Md., Rich created an unconventional life for herself as a mother, wife, poet, and activist, who often focused her energy on “outing” the oppression of women and lesbians and who modified the traditional cadence of free verse poetry. Whether she was a lesbian or not is irrelevant to her contributions to the antiwar and feminist movements as well as her poetic contributions that often were confessional and shocking. She strove to change the world through poetry and the power of the written word, even if she acknowledged herself that poetry could not do it alone. Though what some would consider a well-decorated poet from awards and fellowships, etc., I would almost say that she never felt she deserved them alone, but wanted to share them with all women and those that strive to make deep-rooted change in our society.
I’ll leave you with a portion of one of her poems from The Penguin Anthology of 20th Century American Poetry edited by Rita Dove.
A Valediction Forbidding Morning (page 296) 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.
Please take a moment to reflect on the power of poetry and seek out Adrienne Rich’s words to celebrate change and passion.
“They gave me a drug that slowed the healing of wounds.” What a fantastic, chilling line! Thank you, Serena, for your touching piece commemorating a truly outstanding poet.
Thanks for stopping by to check out the tribute. I was saddened by her passing.
I’ll have to revisit her work. I remember reading her poems in college. I was sad to hear of her passing.
You must have some of her poetry in those anthologies, no?
this was in one of my books of poetry & one I love, So here it is in remembrance to a great voice.
Diving Into The Wreck
First having read the book of myths,
and loaded the camera,
and checked the edge of the knife-blade,
I put on the body-armor of black rubber
the absurd flippers
the grave and awkward mask.
I am having to do this
not like Cousteau with his
assiduous team
aboard the sun-flooded schooner
but here alone.
There is a ladder.
The ladder is always there
hanging innocently
close to the side of the schooner.
We know what it is for,
we who have used it.
Otherwise
it’s a piece of maritime floss
some sundry equipment.
I go down.
Rung after rung and still
the oxygen immerses me
the blue light
the clear atoms
of our human air.
I go down.
My flippers cripple me,
I crawl like an insect down the ladder
and there is no one
to tell me when the ocean
will begin.
First the air is blue and then
it is bluer and then green and then
black I am blacking out and yet
my mask is powerful
it pumps my blood with power
the sea is another story
the sea is not a question of power
I have to learn alone
to turn my body without force
in the deep element.
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
the thing I came for:
the wreck and not the story of the wreck
the thing itself and not the myth
the drowned face always staring
toward the sun
the evidence of damage
worn by salt and sway into this threadbare beauty
the ribs of the disaster
curving their assertion
among the tentative haunters.
This is the place.
And I am here, the mermaid whose dark hair
streams black, the merman in his armored body
We circle silently
about the wreck
We dive into the hold.
I am she: I am he
whose drowned face sleeps with open eyes
whose breasts still bear the stress
whose silver, copper, vermeil cargo lies
obscurely inside barrels
half-wedged and left to rot
we are the half-destroyed instruments
that once held to a course
the water-eaten log
the fouled compass
We are, I am, you are
by cowardice or courage
the one who find our way
back to this scene
carrying a knife, a camera
a book of myths
in which our names do not appear.
I’ve seen this famous poem…I really enjoy it as well. Thanks for posting it.
I didn’t think I’d read any of Rich’s poetry, but I had previously read the one you posted, “Tonight No Poetry Will Serve.” Although I’m not familiar with much of her work, it’s clear that her loss is felt strongly by those who knew her and her writing.
I think that may be true of many poets that we don’t recall reading their work, but upon reading it, we realize that we have read it before. That, at least to me, speaks to the universality of poetry in that it is heard on merit without much thought to attribution