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Quote by Adrienne Rich

“But before we were mothers, we have been, first of all, women, with actual bodies and actual minds.”

Quote by Adrienne Rich

Book:Of woman born motherhood as experience and institution

Work

Of woman born motherhood as experience and institution

This book delves into the complex experiences and societal roles associated with motherhood, offering an in-depth analysis of the various aspects of this significant life experience. more

Author

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. more

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“Motherhood, in the sense of an intense, reciprocal relationship with a particular child, or children, is one part of female process; it is not an identity for all time.”

Children Process Identity Particular Female Motherhood Intense All Time Reciprocal

Book:Of woman born motherhood as experience and institution

Source: Of woman born motherhood as experience and institution

“Our personalities seem dangerously to blur and overlap with our mother's; and, in a desperate attempt to know where mother ends and daughter begins, we perform radical surgery.”

Knows Ends Seems Mother Personality Daughter Radical Desperate Surgery Blur

Book:Of woman born motherhood as experience and institution

Source: Of woman born motherhood as experience and institution

“Nothing could have prepared me for the realization that I was a mother ... when I knew I was still in a state of uncreation myself.”

Stills States Mother Prepared Realization

Book:Of woman born motherhood as experience and institution

Source: Of woman born motherhood as experience and institution

“There's only so far you can go before you say enough is enough.”

Enough Enough Is Enough

Author:Jennifer Granholm

“It is important to possess a short-term pessimism and a long-term optimism.”

Long Important Term Optimism Long Term Pessimism Short Term

Author:Adrienne Rich

“[The poet] is endowed to speak for those who do not have the gift of language, or to see for those who - for whatever reasons - are less conscious of what they are living through. It is as though the risks of the poet's existence can be put to some use beyond her own survival.”

Reason Use Speak Language Existence Risk Poet Survival Conscious

Author:Adrienne Rich

“I do not think [poetry] is more, or less, necessary than food, shelter, health, education, decent working conditions. It is as necessary.”

Thinking Poetry Conditions Poet Decent Poetry Is Shelter Health Education Working Conditions

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 can open locked chambers of possibiity, restore numbed zones to feeling, recharge desire.”

Feelings Desire Zone Locked Chamber

Author:Adrienne Rich

“The necessity of poetry has to be stated over and over, but only to those who have reason to fear its power, or those who still believe that language is 'only words' and that an old language is good enough for our descriptions of the world we are trying to transform.”

World Trying Believe Stills Reason Enough Poetry Language Poet Description Good Enough Social Change

Book:On Lies, Secrets, and Silence: Selected Prose 1966-1978

Source: On Lies, Secrets, and Silence: Selected Prose 1966-1978

“White hate crimes, white hate speech. I still try to claim I wasn't brought up to hate. But hate isn't the half of it. I grew up in the vast encircling presumption of whiteness - that primary quality of being which knows itself, its passions, only against an otherness that has to be dehumanized. I grew up in white silence that was utterly obsessional. Race was the theme whatever the topic.”

Knows Trying Stills Hate Passion White Race Half Silence Quality Crime Grew Speech Grew Up Racism Claims Primaries Theme Topics Hate Crime Presumption Whiteness Otherness Hate Speech

Author:Adrienne Rich