"Global culture" is of course not a culture: it's the global marketing and imposing of commodities and images for the interests of the few at the expense of the many. Adrienne Rich More Quotes by Adrienne Rich More Quotes From Adrienne Rich I don’t think we can separate art from overall human dignity and hope. Adrienne Rich dignityartthinking and I ask myself and you, which of our visions will claim us which will we claim how will we go on living how will we touch, what will we know what will we say to each other. Adrienne Rich visionclaimsgoes-on 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. Adrienne Rich novembermaymoving Art and literature have given so many people the relief of feeling connected - pulled us out of isolation. It has let us know that somebody else breathed and dreamed and had sex and loved and raged and knew loneliness the way we do. Adrienne Rich lonelinesssexart [The poet] is endowed to speak for those who do not have the gift of language, or to see for those who - for whatever reasons - are less conscious of what they are living through. It is as though the risks of the poet's existence can be put to some use beyond her own survival. Adrienne Rich risksurvivaluse What we see, we see and seeing is changing Adrienne Rich seeing Nothing could have prepared me for the realization that I was a mother ... when I knew I was still in a state of uncreation myself. Adrienne Rich statesrealizationmother Our personalities seem dangerously to blur and overlap with our mother's; and, in a desperate attempt to know where mother ends and daughter begins, we perform radical surgery. Adrienne Rich daughterpersonalitymother The necessity of poetry has to be stated over and over, but only to those who have reason to fear its power, or those who still believe that language is 'only words' and that an old language is good enough for our descriptions of the world we are trying to transform. Adrienne Rich poetrytryingbelieve Can you remember? when we thought Adrienne Rich taughtpoetrylife But before we were mothers, we have been, first of all, women, with actual bodies and actual minds. Adrienne Rich bodymothermind motherhood is the great mesh in which all human relations are entangled, in which lurk our most elemental assumptions about love and power. Adrienne Rich meshassumptionmotherhood The liar often suffers from amnesia. Amnesia is the silence of the unconscious. Adrienne Rich silenceliarslying I don't want to succumb to the idea that for the generation, or generations, raised on television, the text is irrelevant or so intimidating that they won't deal with it. If you teach, you see this is not true. It may be that newer generations do not worship the text as some of their elders do. Adrienne Rich generationstelevisionideas The women's movement appeared at a very crucial moment in my life. There was a whole political movement asking such questions and others I had never asked. I began to feel heard in that movement. But it was because my voice was resonating with other voices. Adrienne Rich politicalvoiceasking I guess what concerns me always is the need for a field, a rich compost, for any art to flourish. But however isolate or unheard you may feel, if you have the need to write poetry, are compelled to write it, you go on, whether there is resonance or not. Adrienne Rich writingartneeds To read as if your life depended on it would mean to let into your reading your beliefs, the swirl of your dreamlife, the physical sensations of your ordinary carnal life; and simultaneously, to allow what you're reading to pierce routines, safe and impermeable, in which ordinary carnal life is tracked, charted, channeled. Then, what of the right answers, the so-called multiple-choice examination sheet with the number 2 pencil to mark one choice and one choice only? Adrienne Rich multiple-choicereadingmean If I cling to circumstances I could feel not responsible. Only she who says she did not choose, is the loser in the end. Adrienne Rich responsibleloserends 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. Adrienne Rich greedmaylittles The decision to feed the world Adrienne Rich choicesdecisionreal
