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I am a citizen of a country that has just undergone a thieved election, a country deeply and dangerously divided between rich and poor, but also between rich and middle class.

Adrienne Rich

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
To conjure with the passive culture and adapt to its rules is to degrade and deny the fullness of our meaning and intention.
ADRIENNE RICH

Adapt Conquer Cultural Degrade Fullness Intention Meaning Passive
It is the thirtieth of May, the thirtieth of November, a beginning or an end, we are moving into the solstice and there is so much here I still do not understand.
ADRIENNE RICH

Beginning End May Moving November Solistice
To write as if your life depended on it; to write across the chalkboard, putting up there in public the words you have dredged; sieved up in dreams, from behind screen memories, out of silence– words you have dreaded and needed in order to know you exist.
ADRIENNE RICH

Across Chalkboard Depended Dream Dredged Life Memories Public Sieved Word Writing
It can speak to people who have themselves felt like monsters and say: you are not alone, this is not monstrous. It can disturb and enrapture.
ADRIENNE RICH

Alone Disturb Enrapture Monster Monstrous People Speak Themselves
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
I came to explore the wreck.
ADRIENNE RICH

Came Explore Wreck
To become a politics of asking women’s questions, demanding a world in which the integrity of all women–not a chosen few–shall be honored and validated in every respect of culture.
ADRIENNE RICH

Culture Demanding Integrity Politics Power Question Respect Validated Women
The mind’s passion is all for singling out. Obscurity has another tale to tell.
ADRIENNE RICH

Another Mind Obscurity Passion Singling Tale
Lying is done with words and also with silence.
ADRIENNE RICH

Integrity Liar Silence Truth Word
When we look closely, or when we become weavers, we learn of the tiny multiple threads unseen in the overall pattern, the knots on the underside of the carpet
ADRIENNE RICH

Carpet Closely Look Multiple Threads Tiny Underside Unseen Weaver
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
We move but our words stand become responsible for more than we intended and this is verbal privilege
ADRIENNE RICH

Intended Moving Our Privilege Responsible Verbal Words
You must write, and read, as if your life depended on it.
ADRIENNE RICH

Depended Life Must Read Writing
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
Mothers and daughters have always exchanged with each other – beyond the verbally transmitted lore of female survival.
ADRIENNE RICH

Beyond Daughter Exchanged Female Mother Survival Transmitted Two Verbally

I am a citizen of a country that has just undergone a thieved election, a country deeply and dangerously divided between rich and poor, but also between rich and middle class.

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I am a citizen of a country that has just undergone a thieved election, a country deeply and dangerously divided between rich and poor, but also between rich and middle class.

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Popular Authors

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