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A thinking woman sleeps with monsters.

Adrienne Rich

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.
ADRIENNE RICH

Hard Learning Mean Refusing Responsibility Strong Thinking Women Work
Probably there is nothing in human nature more resonant with charges than the flow of energy between two biologically alike bodies, one of which has lain in amniotic bliss inside the other, one of which has labored to give birth to the other.
ADRIENNE RICH

Alike Biological Bodies Charges Energy Giving Human Nature Nothing Probably Resonant Two
We can count on so few people to go that hard way with us.
ADRIENNE RICH

Count Few Hard People Way
In America we have only the present tense. I am in danger. You are in danger.
ADRIENNE RICH

Country Danger Present Tense
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

Been Compared Elder Generation Teach Worship
I am a woman in the prime of my life, with certain powers and those powers severely limited by authorities whose faces I rarely see.
ADRIENNE RICH

Authorities Authority Certain Face Life Power Prime Rarely Woman
In the interstices of language lie powerful secrets of the culture.
ADRIENNE RICH

Culture Interstices Language Lying Powerful Secret
No one ever told us we had to study our lives,make of our lives a study, as if learning natural historyor music, that we should beginwith the simple exercises firstand slowly go on tryingthe hard ones.
ADRIENNE RICH

Exercise Goes History Learning Music Natural Simple Study Told
I don’t think we can separate art from overall human dignity and hope.
ADRIENNE RICH

Art Dignity Hope Overall Thinking
I am always interested in the ways of scoring the sound of the poem, especially a poem with long lines.
ADRIENNE RICH

Bridges Especially Interested Line Long Poem Scoring Space Thinking
It’s been associated with the power of the word, with the sacred, with magic and transformation, with the oral narratives that help a people cohere.
ADRIENNE RICH

Choice People Power Sacred Transformation
A withdrawal from thinking in terms of social and collective values, needs and solutions. The consciousness-raising groups of the women’s movement, for instance, becoming “support-groups” or therapy groups.
ADRIENNE RICH

Collective Consciousness Need Solution Support Value Withdrawal
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.
ADRIENNE RICH

Believe Citizen Class Country Dangerously Deeply Divided Election Government Middle Poor Rich Thieved Undergone
[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.
ADRIENNE RICH

Endowed Gift Language Reason Risk Speak Survival Use
I am uncomfortable with talking of poetry as a priestly profession, because I have little use for organized religions and priestly hierarchies. They have demoralized, persecuted, so many, including women, gays, non-believers.
ADRIENNE RICH

Gay Organized Poetry Priestly Profession Religion Talking Uncomfortable Use
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.
ADRIENNE RICH

Art Body Function Great Help Imagine Live Ourselves Skin Someone Something

A thinking woman sleeps with monsters.

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A thinking woman sleeps with monsters.

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