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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

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
Poetry can add its grain to an accumulation of consciousness against the idea that there is no alternative – that we’re just in the great flow of capitalism and it can never be any different – that this is human destiny, this is human nature.
ADRIENNE RICH

Alternative Consciousness Destiny Flow Grain Idea
“Global culture” is of course not a culture: it’s the global marketing and imposing of commodities and images for the interests of the few at the expense of the many.
ADRIENNE RICH

Commodity Culture Image Imposing Interest Marketing
There’s been real hostility toward political poetry in the U.S., hostility or, at best, incomprehension. I’m speaking of those who have institutional power over what gets published, over grants andprizes and reviewing.
ADRIENNE RICH

Country Incomprehension Institution Male Political Power Real Speaking
What I believe in and what my government represents are not the same thing.
ADRIENNE RICH

Believe Government Represent Same Thing
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
Every journey into the past is complicated by delusions, false memories, false namings of real events.
ADRIENNE RICH

Complicated Delusion Fake False Journey Memories Naming Past People Real
As a society in turmoil, we are going to see more, and more various, attempts to simulate order through repression; and art is a historical target for such efforts.
ADRIENNE RICH

Art Effort Going Historical More Order Repression Simulate Society Target Turmoil Various
There is no ‘the truth,’ ‘a truth’–truth is not one thing, or even a system. It is an increasing complexity.
ADRIENNE RICH

Complexity Increasing One System Thing Truth
I’d call it love if love didn’t take so many years but lust too is a jewel.
ADRIENNE RICH

Call Jewels Love Sex Tale Year
The unconscious wants truth. It ceases to speak to those who want something else more than truth.
ADRIENNE RICH

Cease More Something Speak Truth Unconscious Want
Motherhood, in the sense of an intense, reciprocal relationship with a particular child, or children, is one part of female process; it is not an identity for all time.
ADRIENNE RICH

Child Children Female Identity Intense Motherhood Process Reciprocal
All new learning looks at first like chaos.
ADRIENNE RICH

Chaos First Learning Look New
The more I live, the more I think, two people together is a miracle.
ADRIENNE RICH

Miracle More People Thinking Together Two
That primary quality of being which knows itself, its passions, only against an otherness that has to be dehumanized. I grew up in white silence that was utterly obsessional. Race was the theme whatever the topic.
ADRIENNE RICH

Dehumanized Gew Itself Know Obsessional Otherness Passion Primarily Quality Race Silence Topic White
I guess what concerns me always is the need for a field, a rich compost, for any art to flourish. But however isolate or unheard you may feel, if you have the need to write poetry, are compelled to write it, you go on, whether there is resonance or not.
ADRIENNE RICH

Art Compost Concern Feel Field Flourish Guess Isolate Need Rich Unheard Writing

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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