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What Is Found There: Notebooks on Poetry and Politics (Expanded Edition)

Book by Adrienne Rich · 16 quotes · Memories, Poet, Poetry

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What Is Found There: Notebooks on Poetry and Politics (Expanded Edition) Quotes

“The danger lies in forgetting what we had. The flow between generations becomes a trickle, grandchildren tape-recording grandparents' memories on special occasions perhaps-no casual storytelling jogged by daily life, there being no shared daily life what with migrations, exiles, diasporas, rendings, the search for work. Or there is a shared daily life riddled with holes of silence.”

LyingMemoriesForgetSilenceGenerationsSpecialDangerFlowHolesStorytellingOccasionsDaily LifeTapeGrandparentGrandchildrenExileCasualMigrationDiasporaSpecial Occasion
Book:What Is Found There: Notebooks on Poetry and Politics (Expanded Edition)
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“I am suspicious - first of all, in myself - of adopted mysticisms of glib spirituality, above all of white people's tendency to ... vampirize American Indian, or African, or Asian, or other 'exotic' ways of understanding.”

PeopleWayFirstsCultureSpiritualityUnderstandingWhiteTendenciesIndianMysticismAdoptedAsianSuspiciousExoticAmerican Indian
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“The [Vietnam War Memorial] Wall became a magnet for citizens of every generation, class, race, and relationship to the war perhaps because it is the only great public monument that allows the anesthetized holes in the heart to fill with a truly national grief.”

HeartWarGriefRaceClassGenerationsWallCitizensHolesVietnamMemorialMonumentVietnam WarMagnet
Book:What Is Found There: Notebooks on Poetry and Politics (Expanded Edition)
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“When the landscape buckles and jerks around, when a dust column of debris rises from the collapse of a block of buildings on bodies that could have been your own, when the staves of history fall awry and the barrel of time bursts apart, some turn to prayer, some to poetry: words in the memory, a stained book carried close to the body, the notebook scribbled by hand--a center of gravity.”

Has BeensBookBodyHandsPoetryTurnsFallLanguageMemoriesPrayerBuildingPoetDisasterBlockDustLandscapeGravityCollapseCould Have BeenColumnsNotebookJerkBarrelsDebrisBucklesCenter Of Gravity
Book:What Is Found There: Notebooks on Poetry and Politics (Expanded Edition)
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“... in a history of spiritual rupture, a social compact built on fantasy and collective secrets, poetry becomes more necessary than ever: it keeps the underground aquifers flowing; it is the liquid voice that can wear through stone.”

SpiritualSpiritPoetrySocialVoiceSecretFantasyPoetBuiltStonesCollectivesPoetry IsLiquidCompactRuptureAquifers
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“We see daily that our lives are terrible and little, without continuity, buyable and salable at any moment, mere blips on a screen, that this is the way we live now. Memory marketed as nostalgia; terror reduced to mere suspense, to melodrama.”

WayLifeLittlesMomentsMemoriesOur LivesTerribleMereTerrorScreensNostalgiaSuspenseContinuityMelodrama
Book:What Is Found There: Notebooks on Poetry and Politics (Expanded Edition)
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“To write as if your life depended on it; to write across the chalkboard, putting up there in public the words you have dredged; sieved up in dreams, from behind screen memories, out of silence-- words you have dreaded and needed in order to know you exist.”

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Book:What Is Found There: Notebooks on Poetry and Politics (Expanded Edition)
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