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My heart is moved by all I cannot save: so much has been destroyed I have to cast my lot with those who age after age, perversely, with no extraordinary power, reconstitute the world.

Adrienne Rich

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.
ADRIENNE RICH

Belief Depended Dreamlife Intelligent Mean Multiple Choice Physical Reading Sensation Swirl
Even where love has run thin the child’s soul musters strength… the rush of purpose to make a life worth living past abandonment building the layers up again over the torn hole.
ADRIENNE RICH

Children Love Loving Past Purpose Run Running Rush Soul Worth
I am suspicious – first of all, in myself – of adopted mysticisms of glib spirituality, above all of white people’s tendency to … vampirize American Indian, or African, or Asian, or other ‘exotic’ ways of understanding.
ADRIENNE RICH

Adopted Country Exotic Myself Mysticisms People Suspicious Tendency Understanding White
Those who speak largely of the human condition are usually those most exempt from its oppressions – whether of sex, race, or servitude.
ADRIENNE RICH

Condition Exempt Human Oppression Race Servitude Sex Speak
A patriot is one who wrestles for the soul of her country as she wrestles for her own being.
ADRIENNE RICH

Country Own Patriotism Soul Wrestles
The materials are here for the deepest mutuality and the most painful estrangement.
ADRIENNE RICH

Deepest Estrangement Material Most Mutuality Painful
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.
ADRIENNE RICH

Consciousness Grandmother Market Ourselves Toughness Unacceptable Women
To “see the light” too often has meant rejecting the treasures found in darkness.
ADRIENNE RICH

Darkness Found Light Rejecting Treasure
Art means nothing if it simply decorates the dinner table of power which holds it hostage.
ADRIENNE RICH

Art Decorate Dinner Hold Hostage Mean Nothing Power Table
I’ve had to guess at her, sewing her skin together as I sew mine, though with a different stitch
ADRIENNE RICH

Different Guess Mine Sew Skin Stitch Together
When one woman tells her truth, it makes a space for other women to tell their truths.
ADRIENNE RICH

Healing Making One Space Tell Truth Woman
Just as traffic symbols, when driving, make us almost unconsciously aware of a steep hill, an intersection, an icy bridge etc.
ADRIENNE RICH

Aware Bridge Driving Hill Icy Intersection Steep Symbol Traffic Unconsciously
The channel of art can only become clogged and misdirected by the artist’s concern with merely temporary and local disturbances. The song is higher than the struggle.
ADRIENNE RICH

Art Artist Channel Clogged Concern Song Struggle Woman
If we had time and no money, living by our wits, what story would you tell?
ADRIENNE RICH

Living Money No Stories Tell Wit
A book of poems doesn’t just come out by chance, an editor has to select it, a publisher has to distribute it or you will never see it.
ADRIENNE RICH

Book Chance Distribute Editor never Poem Select
They can rule the world while they can persuade us our pain belongs in some order is death by famine worse than death by suicide, than a life of famine and suicide…?
ADRIENNE RICH

Belong Death Famine Pain Persuade Suicide Wose

My heart is moved by all I cannot save: so much has been destroyed I have to cast my lot with those who age after age, perversely, with no extraordinary power, reconstitute the world.

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My heart is moved by all I cannot save: so much has been destroyed I have to cast my lot with those who age after age, perversely, with no extraordinary power, reconstitute the world.

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Popular Authors

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