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In 1945, just at the end of World War II, the American poet Muriel Rukeyser wrote a remarkable book called The Life of Poetry. In it she says that on any particular day in the world.

Adrienne Rich

If you are trying to transform a brutalized society into one where people can live in dignity and hope, you begin with the empowering of the most powerless. You build from the ground up.
ADRIENNE RICH

Begin Brutalized Dignity Empowering Hope People Powerless Society Transform Trying
Since men are loyal at least to their own world-view, their laws of brotherhood and self-interest.
ADRIENNE RICH

Brotherhood Interest Least Loyal Men Own Self Since View World
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
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
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
Grief held back from the lips wears at the heart; the drop that refused to join the river dried up in the dust.
ADRIENNE RICH

Dried Drop Dust Grief Heart Lip Refused River Wear
I soon began to sense a fundamental perceptual difficulty among male scholars (and some female ones) for which ‘sexism’ is too facile a term. It is really an intellectual defect, which might be termed ‘patrivincialism’ or patrochialism.
ADRIENNE RICH

Difficulty Fundamental Intellectual Men Patrivincialism Patrochialism Perceptual Real Sexism
But before we were mothers, we have been, first of all, women, with actual bodies and actual minds.
ADRIENNE RICH

Bodies Body Mind Mother Women
It is the lesbian in us who is creative, for the dutiful daughter of the fathers in us is only a hack.
ADRIENNE RICH

Creativity Daughter Father Hack Lesbian
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
I touch you knowing we weren’t born tomorrow, and somehow, each of us will help the other live, and somewhere, each of us must help the other die.
ADRIENNE RICH

Born Each Help Helping Knowing Live Somehow Somewhere Tomorrow
Sometimes I seem to myself, in my feelings toward these tiny guiltless beings, a monster of selfishness and intolerance.
ADRIENNE RICH

Feeling Guileless Intolerance Myself Selfishness Sometimes
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
I have an inward treasure born with me, which can keep me alive if all the extraneous delights should be withheld or offered only at a price I cannot afford to give.
ADRIENNE RICH

Alive Born Delight Extraneous Giving Offered
We need to imagine a world in which every woman is the presiding genius of her own body.
ADRIENNE RICH

Body Children Genius Imagine Motherhood New Relationship Woman World
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

In 1945, just at the end of World War II, the American poet Muriel Rukeyser wrote a remarkable book called The Life of Poetry. In it she says that on any particular day in the world.

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In 1945, just at the end of World War II, the American poet Muriel Rukeyser wrote a remarkable book called The Life of Poetry. In it she says that on any particular day in the world.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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