As a very young poet, I had been brought up on that dogma that politics was bad for poetry. Adrienne Rich More Quotes by Adrienne Rich More Quotes From Adrienne Rich It is important to possess a short-term pessimism and a long-term optimism. Adrienne Rich optimism important long No woman is really an insider in the institutions fathered by masculine consciousness. When we allow ourselves to believe we are, we lose touch with parts of ourselves defined as unacceptable by that consciousness; with the vital toughness and visionary strength of the angry grandmothers, the fierce market women of the Ibo's Women's War, the marriage-resisting women silk workers of pre-Revolutionary China, the millions of widows, midwives, and the women healers tortured and burned as witches for three centuries in Europe. Adrienne Rich inspiring war believe The words are purposes./The words are maps./I came to see the damage that was done/and the treasures that prevail. Adrienne Rich damage done purpose I am the androgyne, I am the living mind you fail to describe in your dead language the lost noun, the verb surviving only in the infinitive the letters of my name are written under the lids of the newborn child Adrienne Rich newborn-child names children My children cause me the most exquisite suffering of which I have any experience. It is the suffering of ambivalence: the murderous alternation between bitter resentment and raw-edged nerves, and blissful gratification and tenderness. Sometimes I seem to myself, in my feelings toward these tiny guiltless beings, a monster of selfishness and intolerance. Adrienne Rich suffering feelings children One of the great functions of art is to help us imagine what it is like to be not ourselves, what it is like to be someone or something else, what it is like to live in another skin, what it is like to live in another body, and in that sense to surpass ourselves, to go out beyond ourselves. Adrienne Rich skins body art I am a citizen of a country that has just undergone a thieved election, a country deeply and dangerously divided between rich and poor, but also between rich and middle class. What I believe in and what my government represents are not the same thing. Adrienne Rich government believe country Abortion is violence; a deep, desperate violence inflicted by a woman upon, first of all, herself. Adrienne Rich abortion violence firsts To seek visions, to dream dreams, is essential, and it is also essential to try new ways of living, to make room for serious experimentation, to respect the effort even where it fails. Adrienne Rich effort vision dream A life I didn't choose Adrienne Rich tools life Every poem breaks a silence that had to be overcome. Adrienne Rich silence break overcoming It's exhilarating to be alive in a time of awakening consciousness; it can also be confusing, disorienting, and painful. Adrienne Rich pain time inspirational War is an absolute failure of imagination, scientific and political. That a war can be represented as helping a people to 'feel good' about themselves, or their country, is a measure of that failure. Adrienne Rich war country people The password is a flicker of an eyelash. Adrienne Rich flicker passwords eyelashes I touch you knowing we weren't born tomorrow, and somehow, each of us will help the other live, and somewhere, each of us must help the other die. Adrienne Rich tomorrow knowing helping To write as if your life depended on it; to write across the chalkboard, putting up there in public the words you have dredged; sieved up in dreams, from behind screen memories, out of silence-- words you have dreaded and needed in order to know you exist. Adrienne Rich dream writing memories How we dwelt in two worlds the daughters and the mothers in the kingdom of the sons. Adrienne Rich daughter mother son The longer I live the more I mistrust theatricality, the false glamour cast by performance, the more I know its poverty beside the truths we are salvaging from the splitting-open of our lives. -from "Transcendental Etude Adrienne Rich transcendental poverty glamour Pride is a tricky, glorious, double-edged feeling. Adrienne Rich pride feelings inspirational 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. Adrienne Rich simple country art
