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Quote by Adrienne Rich

“We've learned a lot from the great psychologists. Wilhelm Reich wrote about the relationship between fascism and sexual repression. Freud rediscovered the underworld of consciousness that European rationalism had denied. But when you have a nation of people in therapy and counselling, "support" groups for every kind of human condition, where, in the clichés of that milieu, people "share" and "heal," the question, "What for?", "What now?" is no longer asked.”

Quote by Adrienne Rich

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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“Can individual psychic wounds really heal in an abusive and fragmented society? Audre Lorde has a poem which begins, "What do we want from each other/ after we have told our stories?" Where do we go to explore our stake with others in such a society?”

Want Stories Individual Wounds Heal Stakes Psychics Abusive Fragmented

Author:Adrienne Rich

“There's been real hostility toward political poetry in the U.S., hostility or, at best, incomprehension. I'm speaking of those who have institutional power over what gets published, over grants andprizes and reviewing. Most of them, though not all, arewhite and male. But even as American society is unravelling, becoming more violent and punitive, wonderful political poetshave been emerging.”

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“A book of poems doesn't just come out by chance, an editor has to select it, a publisher has to distribute it or you will never see it.”

Book Chance Editors Publishers Select

Author:Adrienne Rich

“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.”

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Author:Adrienne Rich

“Increasingly I think of poetry as a theatre of voices, not as coming from a single "I" or from any one position. I want to imagine voices different from my own.”

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Author:Adrienne Rich

“In a society where some people are far more educated than others, in which public education is ill-funded - here I am speaking of the U.S. - while we build more and more prisons to incarcerate youth who ought to be in school, there is already a gap between those with education and those without. Those with educational privilege can be seen as arrogant, remote, alien - and very often they believe themselves superior.”

People Believe School Youth Ought Prison Ill Privilege Educational Superiors Educated Aliens Gaps Arrogant Here I Am Public Education Peaking

Author:Adrienne Rich

“I am uncomfortable with talking of poetry as a priestly profession, because I have little use for organized religions and priestly hierarchies. They have demoralized, persecuted, so many, including women, gays, non-believers.”

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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.”

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Author:Adrienne Rich

“I don't want to succumb to the idea that for the generation, or generations, raised on television, the text is irrelevant or so intimidating that they won't deal with it. If you teach, you see this is not true. It may be that newer generations do not worship the text as some of their elders do.”

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“Young people know they are being betrayed by he mass electronic media. It caricatures them, caricatures others. It is not really about them though it targets them as consumers.”

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Author:Adrienne Rich