black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

Passion for survival is the great theme of women’s poetry.

Adrienne Rich

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 takes some strength of soul–and not just individual strength, but collective understanding–to resist this void, this nonbeing, into which are thrust, and to stand up, demanding to be seen and heard.
ADRIENNE RICH

Demanding Individual Nonbeing Resist Strength Void
We see daily that our lives are terrible and little, without continuity, buyable and salable at any moment, mere blips on a screen, that this is the way we live now. Memory marketed as nostalgia; terror reduced to mere suspense, to melodrama.
ADRIENNE RICH

Buyable Life Live Melodrama Memories Nostalgia Salablem Blip Screen Suspense Terrible Terror Way
Abortion is violence; a deep, desperate violence inflicted by a woman upon, first of all, herself.
ADRIENNE RICH

Abortion Deep Desperate First Herself Violence Woman
In the States, there has been, compared to the Sixties and Seventies, a huge retrenchment – not just in poetry – into the personal.
ADRIENNE RICH

Compared Country Need Personal Poetry Retrenchment Support Thinking
I keep coming back to you in my head, but you couldn’t know that, and I have no carbons.
ADRIENNE RICH

Back Carbon Coming Head Keep Know
False history gets made all day, any day, the truth of the new is never on the news False history gets written every day … the lesbian archaeologist watches herself sifting her own life out from the shards she’s piecing, asking the clay all questions but her own.
ADRIENNE RICH

Clay Day Every False History Watches Written
The truth of our bodies and our minds has been mystified to us. We therefore have primary obligation to each other: not to undermine each other’s sense of reality for the sake of expediency; not to gaslight each other.
ADRIENNE RICH

Bodies Expediency Gaslight Instinct Mind Truth
If poetry ceased to exist, it would immediately be reinvented on that same day.
ADRIENNE RICH

Ceased Day Exist Immediately Poetry Reinvented Same
There is no ‘the truth’,’a truth’ – truth is not one thing, or even a system. It is an increasing complexity. the pattern of the carpet is a surface.
ADRIENNE RICH

Carpet Complexity Incraeding Look Pattern Surface System Truth Unseen
So endlessly, still expecting to be believed. We are accustomed to the contempt inherent in the political lie.
ADRIENNE RICH

Accustomed Believed Contempt Endlessly Expecting Inherent Lie Political Still
In a world where language and naming are power, silence is oppression, is violence.
ADRIENNE RICH

Language Naming Oppression Power Silence Violence World
“What do we want from each other/ after we have told our stories?” Where do we go to explore our stake with others in such a society?
ADRIENNE RICH

Each Explore Other Society Stake Stories Want
I don’t trust them but I’m learning to use them.
ADRIENNE RICH

Don't Learning Trust Use
Heterosexuality has been forcibly and subliminally imposed on women. Yet everywhere women have resisted it, often at the cost of physical torture, imprisonment, psychosurgery, social ostracism, and extreme poverty.
ADRIENNE RICH

Cost Forcibly Heterosexuality Imposed Poverty Subliminally Woman
There being no shared daily life what with migrations, exiles, diasporas, rendings, the search for work. Or there is a shared daily life riddled with holes of silence
ADRIENNE RICH

Being Daily Exile Migration Rending Riddled Search Shared Silence Work

Passion for survival is the great theme of women’s poetry.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

Passion for survival is the great theme of women’s poetry.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Adrienne Rich Quotes