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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

In America we have only the present tense. I am in danger. You are in danger.
ADRIENNE RICH

Country Danger Present Tense
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
A knowledge that is subliminal, subversive, preverbal: the knowledge flowing between two alike bodies, one of which has spent nine months inside the other.
ADRIENNE RICH

Between Bodies Inside Knowledge Month Preverbal Subliminal Subversive
The words are purposes./The words are maps./I came to see the damage that was done/and the treasures that prevail.
ADRIENNE RICH

Damage Done Map Prevail Purpose Treasure Word
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
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
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 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
I think of poetry as something out there in the world and within each of us. I don’t mean that everyone can write poetry – it’s an art, a craft.
ADRIENNE RICH

Art Craft Each Everyone Mean Poetry Something World Writing
Or those who still believe that language is ‘only words’ and that an old language is good enough for our descriptions of the world we are trying to transform.
ADRIENNE RICH

Believe Description Language Old Transform
I choose to love this time for once with all my intelligence -from “Splittings
ADRIENNE RICH

Choose Intelligence Love Splitting Time
No one sleeps in this room without the dream of a common language.
ADRIENNE RICH

Common Dream Language Room Sleep
That a war can be represented as helping a people to ‘feel good’ about themselves, or their country, is a measure of that failure.
ADRIENNE RICH

Country Failure Feel Good Helping Measure Represented Themselves War
White hate crimes, white hate speech. I still try to claim I wasn’t brought up to hate. But hate isn’t the half of it. I grew up in the vast encircling presumption of whiteness.
ADRIENNE RICH

Claim Crime Grew Hate Passion Speech Try White
As her sons have seen her: the mother in patriarchy: controlling, erotic, castrating, heart-suffering, guilt-ridden, and guilt-provoking; a marble brow.
ADRIENNE RICH

Catering Controlling Erotic Guilt Heart Marble Mother Patriarchy Provoking Riddem Son
Our personalities seem dangerously to blur and overlap with our mother’s; and, in a desperate attempt to know where mother ends and daughter begins, we perform radical surgery.
ADRIENNE RICH

Attempt Correspond Dangerously Daughter Mother Personalities Personality

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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