Adrienne Rich Quotes

Made difficult-to-come-by, whatever is buried in the memory by the collapse of meaning under an inadequate or lying language – this will become, not merely unspoken, but unspeakable.

Women’s art, though created in solitude, wells up out of community.

It is as though the risks of the poet’s existence can be put to some use beyond her own survival.

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.

Even the most angry, even the darkest, even the most grief-stricken, and even the most embittered art has that element somewhere behind it. Because how could you be so despairing, so embittered, if you had not had something you loved that you lost?

Passion for survival is the great theme of women’s poetry.

Behind all art is an element of desire…Love of life, of existence, love of another human being, love of human beings is in some way behind all art.

For now, poetry has the capacity – in its own ways and by its own means – to remind us of something we are forbidden to see.

In a society where some people are far more educated than others, in which public education is ill-funded – here I am speaking of the U.S. – while we build more and more prisons to incarcerate youth who ought to be in school.

If I cling to circumstances I could feel not responsible. Only she who says she did not choose, is the loser in the end.