Adrienne Rich passed away 27 March.  Though ardently political and feminist, she had an unerring eye and ear for the relationships we come to and endure.




Moving in Winter (Adrienne Rich)

Their life, collapsed like unplayed cards,

is carried piecemeal through the snow:

Headboard and footboard now, the bed

where she has lain desiring him

where overhead his sleep will build

its canopy to smother her once more;

their table, by four elbows worn

evening after evening while the wax runs down;

mirrors grey with reflecting them,

bureaus coffining from the cold

things that shuffle in a drawer,

carpets rolled up around those echoes

which, shaken out, take wing and breed

new altercations, the old silences.





Poetry by countryfog
Read 520 times
Written on 2012-03-29 at 17:08

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Lawrence Beck The PoetBay support member heart!
I've never been a fan of Adrienne Rich, but I really enjoyed this poem. Thanks, Fog.
2012-04-03



I find it irrististable, almost impossible, not to read something about the actual life of every writer I read and respect. I suppose I want some kind of affirmation that the poem or novel or short story that so deeply moved me to thought or feelings is telling the truth. If he or she is just writing to spin a tale or to be clever, then at least I know to approach the work from that viewpoint, and then see if, as Jim noted, that the poem stands on its own.

I do think that there is a place for political art though. Without the protest songs of the 1960s, perhaps the Civil Rights Act would never have been passed.
2012-03-30



I read her poems long before I knew of her feminist interest, and I liked the poems on their merit. As with many things ignorance (or innocence) is bliss. Once I knew her biography and her politics I saw the poems differently, they lost something, they became statements. Ignorance and innocence are worth a lot sometimes.

This is a common problem and debate in the arts. Is it better to know something of the artist or not? Generally, I think it is better. I think it's helpful to know you are a Midwestern writer. It's probably helpful to know I'm a rancher. Yet, I can't listen to Wagner or read Eliot or Pound (or P.G. Wodehouse for that matter) without their politics getting the way. My loss? Probably.
2012-03-29