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
Strong and outstanding Political and Feminist poet, Adrienne Cecile Rich, captivated her audience with her true and soft words. She is a prime example of uncovering hidden struggles for more than one community and responsible for delivering so many eye-opening pages to read. The most stable way to describe her tremendous gravitational pull would be to quote the woman herself, “Art means nothing if it simply decorates the dinner table of the power which holds it hostage”. She is a creative individual
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
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
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
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 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
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
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
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
An Analysis of Adrienne Clarkson Adrienne Clarkson was the former-appointed governor general of Canada. Many Canadians also recognize Madame Clarkson as an accomplished journalist, publisher, author, filmmaker and civil servant. Adrienne was born in 1939 in Hong Kong, China. Her family moved to Canada in 1942. Adrienne Clarkson is the epitome of passionate politics and believes in the strength of Canada’s cultural and ethnic complexity. This essay analyzes the hardships and remarkable past accomplishments
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
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
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
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
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
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
In the poem “Living in Sin” written by Adrienne Rich, Adrienne begins the poem with the perception of having a perfect relationship in which everything great will majestically fall into place for her. She has the fantasy that there is no work and/or effort to be put forth into a perfect relationship when she soon realizes is false. “Living in Sin” tells the story of a young woman who is unhappy with her life as well as her husband because of the fact that she feels she is nothing but a maid rather
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