Adrienne Rich’s soul-stirring words, like the ones from Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers, have seeded themselves deep into my marrow. She has tackled a range of deeply personal subjects in her poetry and nonfiction prose — and with her eloquent poise speaks on behalf of the oppressed, the disillusioned and the forgotten. Though the lauded poet is no longer with us, I’d like to think her voice, however faint, will remain a part of each of her readers. Here’s a poignant quote from the incomparable Adrienne Rich about the meaning of love:
“An honorable human relationship — that is, one in which two people have the right to use the word “love” — is a process, delicate, violent, often terrifying to both persons involved, a process of refining the truths they can tell each other. It is important to do this because it breaks down human self-delusion and isolation. It is important to do this because in doing so we do justice to our own complexity. It is important to do this because we can count on so few people to go that hard way with us.”
Adrienne Rich, On Lies, Secrets, and Silence: Selected Prose 1966-1978
Synopsis
Adrienne Cecile Rich was born May 16, 1929, in Baltimore Maryland and passed away March 27, 2012, in Santa Cruz, California. She was eighty-two years old. Rich was a poet and scholar whose work highlights her commitment to the women’s movement. In 1997, she rejected the National Medal of the Arts because the politics of then-President Bill Clinton conflicted with her ideas about the arts.
“I could not accept such an award from President Clinton or this White House because the very meaning of art, as I understand it, is incompatible with the cynical politics of this administration.” She went on to say: “[Art] means nothing if it simply decorates the dinner table of the power which holds it hostage.”
(Picture via here)
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