Rich, Adrienne. Midnight Salvage: Poems 1995-1998. NY: W.W. Norton & Co., 1999. A Physical Conversation Adrienne Rich writes a long conversation, in A Long Conversation, with multiple and fluid dialogues. Interpretations of these dialogues are rich, thick and endless. Her dialogues include a conversation between past and present times, between past and present theories, between great minds and regular people, between the subject and creation of art and its place in time, and the conversation
Homelessness is not something that was created over night; it has existed for a long time; often we choose not to see the homeless, or bother with them, so we look the other way. Homelessness is not prejudice toward race, creed, or religion--it has no boundaries; all homeless people should not be stereotyped as being drug abusers or the mentally ill that have been released from mental hospitals. Homelessness is not a disease that a person can catch from bodily contact, but it certainly has afflicted
Subject of Family in Lessing’s Flight, Hughes’ Mother to Son, Kincaid's Girl and Adrienne Rich's Poem, Merced Family as defined by Webster’s College Dictionary can be one of many different people. Family can be your parents, spouse, children, brother, sister, grandmother, uncle, any blood relative, or even people who are not blood related that share that common bond (Webster 475). My definition of family is similar to Webster’s, but I feel that there is more to it than just being a blood relative
The Use of Symbols in Adrienne Rich's Poem, Aunt Jennifer's Tigers Freedom has always been an important value in the United States that most people are not willing to give up. Ralph Waldo Emerson, a writer who lived in the 1800s, reminded Americans of their rights of liberty at a time when many people started to conform to established norms. He voiced his opinions about the loss of freedom and invited society to realize that they were relinquishing their rights. Years later, his views still
Women. Adrienne Rich says we have our work cut out for us. Alice Walker says we could do so much given the artistic chance. Patricia Williams says that we are not sleeping. I listen and relate to these women. And I wonder what do I say? I am a woman. I don't know what it means for me to be a woman. I just am. Be Insatiable. Be insatiable and still a woman. Stand for your beliefs, be a bitch and yet stay soft and sexy and agreeable. I feel like a lousy commercial for some perfume, "I
The Poetry of Adrienne Rich Adrienne Rich was born in Baltimore, Maryland in the year of 1929. Rich grew up in a household as she describes it as ” …white, middle-class, full of books, and with a father who encouraged her to write” (Daniel). Her father Arnold Rich was a doctor and a pathology professor and her mother, Helen Jones Rich , was a pianist and a composer. “Adrienne Rich recalls her growing-up years clearly dominated by the intellectual presence and demands of the male in the family, her
love-interest relationships to be able to survive as a strong-minded female in today's society. As I read articles on education I was able to find two authors that shared my views about education in today's society: Adrienne Rich and Jon Spayde. In the article "What Does a Woman Need to Know?" by Adrienne Rich, Rich delivers a commencement address to female college graduates about the condition of women's education. As a writer and teacher, Rich states that "there is no women's college today which is providing
Of Woman Born – The End of Motherhood In Of Woman Born, Adrienne Rich effectively weaves her own story into a convincing account of what it means to become a mother within the bonds of patriarchal culture. Her conclusion that the institution of motherhood, which she distinguishes from motherhood, must be destroyed in order to release the creation and sustenance of life into the same realm of decision, struggle, surprise, imagination, and conscious intelligence, as any other difficult, but freely
Adrienne Rich's poem entitled "Miracle Ice Cream" is a short, yet thoughtfully penned poem that gives reference to playful and memorable experiences during childhood. The author follows to allude to deeper meaning with a stronger final stanza. Rich's beautiful use of language and brilliant placement of meter adds to the power behind this poem intended to elicit a response from the reader which would help relieve stress from everyday life. Given that the title of the poem is called "Miracle Ice
The Love Poems of Rich, Marvell and Campion Adrienne Rich’s “Twenty-One Love Poems,” which explore the nature of lesbian love, differ strikingly from classic love poems written by a man to a woman, such as Andrew Marvell’s “To His Coy Mistress” and Thomas Campion’s “There Is a Garden in Her Face.” Rich’s poems focus on the “us” aspect of love, the concept of two strong, yet imperfect women facing all oppositions together, while the love poems written by men are far more reverent, almost worshipful
Tigers by Adrienne Rich Who is Aunt Jennifer? Does she even exist? I had to ask myself these questions before even going further into the poem. The answers opened the door to a deeper meaning behind Aunt Jennifer's Tigers. Based on Adrienne Rich's background I believe Aunt Jennifer did exist. However, Aunt Jennifer was not Rich's aunt. Aunt Jennifer represented women all over the world, particularly women in American, who were caught under the oppressive hand of a patriarchal society. Adrienne Rich
The Feminist Movement and Adrienne Rich's Power "Power," which was written in 1978 by Adrienne Rich, parallels the Feminist Movement that went into full swing roughly ten years earlier. The poem asks that we revise the traditions regarding the roles of women and relates it to Marie Curie, a famous scientist who preceded the Feminist Movement by about 100 years. The bottle and earth described in the first six lines parallel the struggle for women's rights and those who were refusing to accept
Yes and No Adrienne Rich attacks heterosexuality as “a political institution which disempowers women” in her 1980 essay Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence (Rich 23). What most see as a traditional way of life, Rich views as a societal mandate that serves as “a beachhead of male dominance,” (Rich 28). For a woman in Virginia Woolf’s time, “the one profession that was open to her [was] marriage,” and though females entered the public sphere as the 20th century progressed, “single
The Relationships of Waverly Jong and Jing-mei Woo in The Joy Luck Club Amy Tan in her novel The Joy Luck Club presents us with daughters who are striving to place themselves beyond the control of strong mothers and become individuals. Adrienne Rich in her book Of Woman Born calls this splitting from the mother, "matraphobia" (Rich, 235), and later notes: "The mother stands for the victim in ourselves, the unfree woman, the martyr. Our personalities seem dangerously to blur and overlap with
middle and upper classes; it allows the less privileged, minorities, as well as both sexes, to receive an equal education. Two arguments which present interesting views on higher education are bell hook’s “Keeping Close to Home'; and Adrienne Rich’s “What Does a Woman Need to Know?'; Hooks views higher education with a concern for the underprivileged, whereas Rich views it with a concern for women. Of the two works, I personally do not agree with Rich’s argument. Bell
interpretations. The question lies within the definition of the female relationships she so wholeheartedly promotes. The varying interpretations include everything ranging from Leapor as promoting lesbianism, to simply promoting good female friendships. Adrienne Rich termed this range of womanly bonds the “lesbian continuum,” and explains it as the inclusive realm between “consciously desired genital sexual experience with another woman,” and “the sharing of a rich inner life, the bonding against male tyranny
Revision In Adrienne Rich's essay "When We Dead Awaken: Writing as Re-vision", the author writes about her personal experience as a woman writer in a male dominated society. Her essay consists of poems, which she had written throughout different times in her life, to demonstrate the transformation in her writing. As a woman writer in a male dominated society, Rich begins writing in the traditional style, "the man's way," but as she continues writing, Rich breaks from these traditional styles to form
A Closer Look at “Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers” The poem “Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers” by Adrienne Rich was written in 1950. At first glance, it appears to be a feminist piece whose sole purpose is to point out the ways in which a particular woman (Aunt Jennifer) is oppressed. However when a closer look is given, there is much more to this piece. When the poem is read line by line, much more meaning can be gleaned from it. “Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers prance across a screen,” the screen would seem to be a tapestry
critically explored the lived reality of women as mothers within our middle-class American society. Betty Friedan's influential The Feminine Mystique, published in 1965, indicted the deadly boredom of the suburban home, while later works such as Adrienne Rich's Of Woman Born, articulated with devastating incisiveness the oppressive qualities of the contemporary institution of motherhood. According to Rich, the intense joys of mothering children were embedded in a patriarchal structure that created
Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers By Adrienne Rich Aunt Jennifer’s tigers stride across a screen Bright topaz denizens of a world of green. They do not fear the men beneath the tree; They pace in sleek chivalric certainty. Aunt Jennifer’s fingers fluttering through her wool Find even the ivory needle hard to pull. The massive weight of uncle’s wedding band Sits heavily upon Aunt Jennifer’s hand. When Aunt is dead, her terrified hands will lie Still ringed with ordeals she was mastered by The tigers in the