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Adrienne Rich Quotes

Poet

Adrienne Rich was an American poet known for her profound poetry and feminist perspective. Her works explored themes such as gender, politics, and social justice, having a profound impact on contemporary poetry.

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Famous Adrienne Rich Quotes

“Reading and writing aren't sacred yet people have been killed as if they were”

Writing Death Poetry Reading Poem Murder Sacredness

Book:Your Native Land, Your Life

Source: Your Native Land, Your Life

“We have seen over and over that white male historians in general have tended to dismiss any history they didn't themselves write,on the grounds that it is unserious, unscholarly, a fad, too "political," "merely" oral and thus unreliable.”

Writing Political White History Males Historian Fads Unreliable

Author:Adrienne Rich

“I long to create something that can't be used to keep us passive: I want to write a script about plumbing, how every pipe is joined to every other.”

Want Writing Long Used Knowledge Scripts Cooperation Passive Pipe Plumbing

Book:Collected Poems: 1950-2012

Source: Collected Poems: 1950-2012

“... how have I used rivers, how have I used wars to escape writing of the worst thing of all-- not the crimes of other, not even our own death, but the failure to want our freedom passionately enough so that blighted elms, sick rivers, massacres would seem mere emblems of that desecration of ourselves?”

Want Writing War Enough Seems Used Freedom Worst Crime Rivers Sick Mere Worst Things Massacres Emblems

Book:The Dream of a Common Language: Poems 1974-1977

Source: The Dream of a Common Language: Poems 1974-1977

“I think many poets, including myself, write both for the voice and for the page. I certainly write for the person alone in the library, who pulls down a book and it opens to a poem. I am also very conscious of what it means to read these poems aloud.”

Thinking Writing Mean Persons Book Voice Poet Pages Conscious Library Including

Author:Adrienne Rich

“I think of poetry as something out there in the world and within each of us. I don't mean that everyone can write poetry - it's an art, a craft, it requires enormous commitment like any art. But there's a core of desire in each of us and poetry goes to and comes from that core. It's the social, economic, institutional gap that makes it difficult.”

Thinking World Writing Mean Art Desire Social Difficult Economic Commitment Core Enormous Crafts Gaps

Author:Adrienne Rich

“I guess what concerns me always is the need for a field, a rich compost, for any art to flourish. But however isolate or unheard you may feel, if you have the need to write poetry, are compelled to write it, you go on, whether there is resonance or not.”

Ifs Needs Feels Writing May Art Rich Fields Goes On Concern Compelled Resonance Unheard Compost

Author:Adrienne Rich

“You have to give your art everything you can - I don't mean only writing, but studying other poets and poetics, thinking, reading what poets have written other than their poetry.”

Thinking Giving Writing Mean Art Reading Study Written Poet

Author:Adrienne Rich

“You must write, and read, as if your life depended on it.”

Ifs Writing

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

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

“Poetry is the liquid voice that can wear through stone.”

Writing Voice Stones Poetry Is Liquid

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

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

“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.”

Ifs Knows Writing Dream Order Memories Behinds Silence Needed Screens Chalkboards

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

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

“Language is power... Language can be used as a means of changing reality.”

Writing Mean Reality Used Language Changing Reality

Author:Adrienne Rich

“You have to be free to play around with the notion that day might be night, love might be hate; nothing can be too sacred for the imagination to turn into its opposite or to call experimentally by another name. For writing is re-naming.”

Writing Play Might Night Hate Turns Names Imagination Opposites Sacred Notion Night Love

Book:Arts of the Possible: Essays and Conversations

Source: Arts of the Possible: Essays and Conversations

About the Author

Born: May 16, 1929
Died: March 27, 2012
Known for: Poet
Quotes: 327

Books & Sources

Your Native Land, Your LifeRelated source material

Of woman born motherhood as experience and institutionRelated source material

Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and InstitutionRelated source material

Arts of the Possible: Essays and ConversationsRelated source material

On Lies, Secrets, and Silence: Selected Prose 1966-1978Related source material

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

Diving Into the WreckRelated source material

The Dream of a Common Language: Poems 1974-1977Related source material

Blood, Bread, and Poetry: Selected Prose 1979-1985Related source material

On Lies, Secrets, and Silence. Selected Prose 1966-1978Related source material

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