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Every poem breaks a silence that had to be overcome.

Adrienne Rich

Until we know the assumptions in which we are drenched, we cannot know ourselves.
ADRIENNE RICH

Assumption Drenched Know Ourselves Until
I am an instrument in the shape/ of a woman trying to translate pulsations/ into images for the relief of the body/ and the reconstruction of the mind.
ADRIENNE RICH

Body Instrument Mind relief Shape Trying
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
And that we can deflect words by trivialization, of course, but also by ritualized respect, or we can let them enter our souls and mix with the juices of our minds.
ADRIENNE RICH

Couse Deflect Juice Mind Respect Ritualized Soul Trivialization Word
Much male fear of feminism is infantilism–the longing to remain the mother’s son, to possess a woman who exists purely for him.
ADRIENNE RICH

Exist Fear Feminism Infantilism Longing Male Mother Much Purely Remain Son
What I discerned in the U.S. was a convergence of poetic voices coming from many different rents in the social fabric, many cultures, many tributaries, which, together, make up the American poetry of the late twentieth century.
ADRIENNE RICH

Century Coming Country Culture Different Discerned Poetic Role Social Together Voice
The most notable fact that our culture imprints on women is a sense of our limits.
ADRIENNE RICH

Culture Fact Important Imprint Limit Notable Sense
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
In a history of spiritual rupture, a social compact built on fantasy and collective secrets, poetry becomes more necessary than ever: it keeps the underground aquifers flowing; it is the liquid voice that can wear through stone.
ADRIENNE RICH

Aquifer Collective History Rupture Secret Spiritual Voice
There is already a gap between those with education and those without. Those with educational privilege can be seen as arrogant, remote, alien – and very often they believe themselves superior.
ADRIENNE RICH

Alien Believe Education Educational Gap Privilege Remote Superior
The difficulty of saying I-a phrase from the East German novelist Christa Wolf. But once having said it, as we realize the necessity to go further, isn’t there a difficulty of saying ‘we’? You cannot speak for me.
ADRIENNE RICH

Country Difficulty Further Movement Novelist People Phrases Realize Two Wolf
Much male fear of feminism is the fear that, in becoming whole human beings, women will cease to mother men, to provide the breast, the lullaby, the continuous attention associated by the infant with the mother.
ADRIENNE RICH

Becoming Being Breast Cease Fear Feminism Human Male Man Mother Provide Son Women
I’ve known great happiness in my life along with great darkness, and a question that has repeatedly entered my poetry has been, how do we use the direct experience of happiness that may be given us.
ADRIENNE RICH

Along Creativity Darkness Entered Experience Given Happiness Life Poetry Repeatedly Use
Art, whose honesty must work through artifice, cannot avoid cheating truth.
ADRIENNE RICH

Art Artifice Cheating Honesty Truth
The decision to feed the world is the real decision. No revolution has chosen it. For that choice requires that women shall be free.
ADRIENNE RICH

Choices Chosen Decision Real Require Revolution Woman
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

Every poem breaks a silence that had to be overcome.

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Every poem breaks a silence that had to be overcome.

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