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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Feminist poet Adrienne Rich has died

31 replies

Nyac · 28/03/2012 22:14

It's heartbreaking now that we're losing so many of our sisters from the Second Wave:

latimesblogs.latimes.com/jacketcopy/2012/03/adrienne-rich.html

We still have their work however. That can stay with us.

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scottishmummy · 04/04/2012 00:11

she was active and inspirational,v sad

swallowedAfly · 03/04/2012 23:59

thank you - i'll call it In Memory of Adrienne Rich.

we should all write one inspired by her and have a collection. that essay is great actually for making visible all of the resistance there has been albeit not noisy.

MooncupGoddess · 03/04/2012 18:04

I've just read Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence and came here to link to it - only to discover (of course) that I've been beaten to it. It's an amazing piece of writing and I want to read it over and over again.

I LOVE your poem SaF. It is beautiful and perfectly captures the sense of Rich's essay: 'the history of women who as witches, femmes seules, marriage resisters, spinsters, autonomous widows, and/or lesbians who have managed on varying levels not to collaborate'.

swallowedAfly · 03/04/2012 10:58

ok so having read that essay this is what she inspired me to write:

I am One
of a very long line
of Women
who got Out.

I am not alone
but the latest in the line
Separated
merely by time.

I have no peers-
strange but true.
One by one they have fallen
but I have always slipped through.

The butterfly collectors
failed
my wings will be
pin Free

this uncolonised land
is little known
a Quiet Resistance
expects no applause-
only to survive,
intact
and call itSelf
Home.

I am One
of a very long line,
of Women
who got Out.

first draft and i'm no poet laureate obviously but thought i'd share it. seems fitting to offer a poem for the death of a poet.

swallowedAfly · 03/04/2012 09:32

have just ordered, 'of woman born' and a couple of poem collections.

about to read compulsory heterosexuality - thanks to whoever linked it.

RIP adrienne rich - you earnt the right.

InAnyOtherSoil · 02/04/2012 11:59

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InmaculadaConcepcion · 30/03/2012 18:42

Very sad news. She was a wonderful poet.

VictorGollancz · 29/03/2012 23:56

'Lesbian Existence', of course.. right subject matter, wrong title.

VictorGollancz · 29/03/2012 23:49

Without Rich's 'Compulsory Heterosexuality and the Lesbian Continuum', large chunks of my personal and professional life would not exist.

It's a tremendously sad day.

LapsusLinguae · 29/03/2012 21:15

I have been meaning to read some of her work.

I have the first chapter of Feminist Mothering by Andrea O'Reilly it says that

"Any discussion on feminist mothering must begin with the distinction Adrinenne Rich made in Of Woman Born between two meanings of motherhood, one superimposed on the other: "the potential relationship of any woman to her powers of reproduction and to children" and "the institution - which aims at ensuring that that potential - and all women - shall remain under male control."

Powerful stuff..

StewieGriffinsMom · 29/03/2012 20:22

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InAnyOtherSoil · 29/03/2012 19:37

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InAnyOtherSoil · 29/03/2012 19:31

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InAnyOtherSoil · 29/03/2012 19:29

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Lovecat · 29/03/2012 19:09

I love that poem, InAnyOtherSoil.

And this too, which on re-reading I'm finding quite spookily apposite for these times:

North American Time

I

When my dreams showed signs
of becoming
politically correct
no unruly images
escaping beyond borders
when walking in the street I found my
themes cut out for me
knew what I would not report
for fear of enemies' usage
then I began to wonder

II

Everything we write
will be used against us
or against those we love.
These are the terms,
take them or leave them.
Poetry never stood a chance
of standing outside history.
One line typed twenty years ago
can be blazed on a wall in spraypaint
to glorify art as detachment
or torture of those we
did not love but also
did not want to kill.

We move but our words stand
become responsibly
for more than we intended

and this is verbal privilege

VII

I am thinking this in a country
where words are stolen out of mouths
as bread is stolen out of mouths
where poets don't go to jail
for being poets, but for being
dark-skinned, female, poor.
I am writing this in a time
when anything we write
can be used against those we love
where the context is never given
though we try to explain, over and over
For the sake of poetry at least
I need to know these things

Adrienne Rich

InAnyOtherSoil · 29/03/2012 19:02

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InAnyOtherSoil · 29/03/2012 19:00

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Lovecat · 29/03/2012 18:57

I'd just moved down to London in 1988 and was entranced by Poems on The Underground - I thought it was a mark of a civilised society that such a thing existed, their cancellation shows how far we've regressed - and one of the first ones I read was Aunt Jennifer's Tigers. It inspired me to go and buy a collection of her poems and I have loved her work ever since. The last two lines of the middle verse haunted me then and now.

Aunt Jennifer's tigers prance 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 panel that she made
Will go on prancing, proud and unafraid.

InAnyOtherSoil · 29/03/2012 18:52

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Lovecat · 29/03/2012 18:50

RIP :(

InAnyOtherSoil · 29/03/2012 18:48

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WidowWadman · 29/03/2012 18:32

Another interesting obituary on her

InAnyOtherSoil · 29/03/2012 10:04

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Nyac · 29/03/2012 08:56

Didn't we call this the second wave squared? It's so hard to lose our leaders though.

New York Times obit:

www.nytimes.com/2012/03/29/books/adrienne-rich-feminist-poet-and-author-dies-at-82.html?_r=1

"Adrienne Rich, a poet of towering reputation and towering rage, whose work ? distinguished by an unswerving progressive vision and a dazzling, empathic ferocity ? brought the oppression of women and lesbians to the forefront of poetic discourse and kept it there for nearly a half-century, died on Tuesday at her home in Santa Cruz, Calif. She was 82."

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Beachcomber · 29/03/2012 08:28

Sad Soon there will be no second wavers still living. We need a second second wave.

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