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A decade of cutting away dead flesh, cauterizing old scars ripped open over and over and still it is not enough.

Adrienne Rich

Writers matter in a society to the extent that we can help that society hear its unvoiced longing, encounter its erased and disregarded selves, break with complacency, numbness, despair.
ADRIENNE RICH

Complacency Despair Disregarded Encounter Erased Extent Hear Help Matter Numbness Self Selves Society Unvoiced
Language is power… Language can be used as a means of changing reality.
ADRIENNE RICH

Changing Language Mean Reality Writing
But can you imagine how some of them were envying you your freedom to work, to think, to travel, to enter a room as yourself, not as some child’s mother or some man’s wife?
ADRIENNE RICH

Children Enter Freedom Man Mother Room Think Travel Wife Work
The ocean, whose tides respond, like women’s menses, to the pull of the moon, the ocean which corresponds to the amniotic fluid in which human life begins.
ADRIENNE RICH

Correspond Men's Monsters Moon Ocean Pull Respond Women
If I cling to circumstances I could feel not responsible. Only she who says she did not choose, is the loser in the end.
ADRIENNE RICH

Choose Circumstance End Feel Loser Responsible
To do something very common, in my own way.
ADRIENNE RICH

Common My Own Something Way
What I believe in and what my government represents are not the same thing.
ADRIENNE RICH

Believe Government Represent Same Thing
I began to feel heard in that movement. But it was because my voice was resonating with other voices.
ADRIENNE RICH

Began Feel Heard Movement Resonating Voice
Until we understand the assumptions in which we are drenched we cannot know ourselves. And this drive to self-knowledge, for women, is more than a search for identity.
ADRIENNE RICH

Assumption Drenched Identity Knowledge More Ourselves Refusal Search Women
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
You have to give your art everything you can – I don’t mean only writing, but studying other poets and poetics, thinking, reading what poets have written other than their poetry.
ADRIENNE RICH

Art Everything Poet Poetic Reading Thinking Writing
In order to live a fully human life we require not only control of our bodies (though control is a prerequisite); we must touch the unity and resonance of our physicality, our bond with the natural order, the corporeal grounds of our intelligence.
ADRIENNE RICH

Bodies Body Control Fully Human Intelligence Life Natural Order Physical Unity
The impulse to create begins – often terribly and fearfully – in a tunnel of silence.
ADRIENNE RICH

Create Fearfully Impulse Real Silence Terribly Tunnel Voice
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
There is nothing revolutionary whatsoever about the control of women’s bodies by men.
ADRIENNE RICH

Body Control Man Nothing Revolutionary Women
There must be those among whom we can sit down and weep, and still be counted as warriors. (I make up this strange, angry packet for you, threaded with love.) I think you thought there was no such place for you, and perhaps there was none then.
ADRIENNE RICH

Among Counted Down Must None Perhaps Sit Weep

A decade of cutting away dead flesh, cauterizing old scars ripped open over and over and still it is not enough.

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A decade of cutting away dead flesh, cauterizing old scars ripped open over and over and still it is not enough.

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Popular Authors

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