How do you feel when you’re awarded a prize for achieving something? Most of us would feel proud and honored regardless of what the award is. However, there have been a few cases when people decide to just refuse certain honors as a form of protest or to rest their position regarding a subject. That was the case of Adrienne Rich, one of the most important and influential poets of the past century.
This happened in 1997, when she was awarded the National Medal of Arts given by the government in recognition of her career. Why did she refuse the award? Simple, she felt that her conception of art (the main reason for the award) wasn’t compatible with the views and attitudes of Bill Clinton’s government or anything related to him. As she stated, “[art] is incompatible with the cynical politics of this administration. It means nothing if it simply decorates the dinner table of the power which holds it hostage.” This makes me think not only about Rich’s firm convictions, but also about how these can become such an inspiration to speak out about your beliefs and always stay true to yourself regardless of how important a prize is. If you delve into her life and works, you’ll find that this was exactly who Rich was: a woman of firm beliefs who always stayed true to her convictions.
Throughout the article we’ll deal with the life and works of Adrienne Rich and show you some examples of her most heated and urging poetry.
The Floating Poem, Unnumbered
Whatever happens with us, your body
will haunt mine—tender, delicate
your lovemaking, like the half-curled frond
of the fiddlehead fern in forests
just washed by sun. Your traveled, generous thighs
between which my whole face has come and come—
the innocence and wisdom of the place my tongue has found there—
the live, insatiate dance of your nipples in my mouth—
your touch on me, firm, protective, searching
me out, your strong tongue and slender fingers
reaching where I had been waiting years for you
in my rose-wet cave—whatever happens, this is.
Describing herself as a lesbian, white, Jewish American woman, Rich is considered one of the best poets and writers of American literature. Most of her works are a perfect account of the life of a cultivated person who was deeply concerned about the political and social issues the world was facing at the time. Having been completely in touch with culture and literature since she was a very young girl, she learned how to pour all her ideas and emotions on the page from all the masters of literature.
Orion (Excerpt)
Far back when I went zig-zagging
through tamarack pastures
you were my genius, you
my cast-iron Viking, my helmed
lion-heart king in prison.
Years later now you’re young
my fierce half-brother, staring
down from that simplified west
your breast open, your belt dragged down
by an oldfashioned thing, a sword
the last bravado you won’t give over
though it weighs you down as you stride
and the stars in it are dim
and maybe have stopped burning.
But you burn, and I know it;
as I throw back my head to take you in
and old transfusion happens again:
divine astronomy is nothing to it.
In 1951, when she was only 22 years old, she won the Yale Younger Poets competition, which put her in the spotlight as an emerging poet with the potential to become a master of poetry. That same year, she published her first collection of poems, called A Change of World, having her preface written by W.H. Auden. Later that year, she was awarded a Guggenheim fellowship that allowed her to travel and study in Oxford.
My Mouth Hovers Across Your Breasts
My mouth hovers across your breasts
in the short grey winter afternoon
in this bed we are delicate
and touch so hot with joy we amaze ourselves
tough and delicate we play rings
around each other our daytime candle burns
with its peculiar light and if the snow
begins to fall outside filling the branches
and if the night falls without announcement
there are the pleasures of winter
sudden, wild and delicate your fingers
exact my tongue exact at the same moment
stopping to laugh at a joke
my love hot on your scent on the cusp of winter
She married Alfred Conrad, an economy professor at Harvard, and when the couple returned to the United States in the sixties she got in touch with all the political movements emerging in the country, and naturally, she was attracted to all the ideas that were flourishing among the youth and intellectuals who weren’t willing to continue living in absolute blindness. Among the causes she adopted were those for women’s rights and as well as the protests against the Vietnam War. Soon, she realized that she didn’t want to abide by the patriarchal norms imposed by society, nor the standards of heterosexual relationships. This led her to abandon her husband, who killed himself a couple of months later.
For This (Excerpt)
If I’ve touched your finger
with a ravenous tongue
licked from your palm a rift of salt
if I’ve dreamt or thought you
a pack of blood fresh-drawn
hanging darkred from a hook
higher than my heart
(you who understand transfusion)
where else should I appeal?
From this moment on, as her career and recognition as a poet grew, so did her political activism, making of both an important reflection of her life and her ideas. In the same way, her feminist ideas also became a lot more important in her life. In 1980, she published an essay called Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence, in which she condemned the repression against lesbians both for their homosexual character and their condition as women. This essay, naturally, is still considered a pillar in feminist and gender studies.
Miracle Ice Cream
Miracle’s truck comes down the little avenue,
Scott Joplin ragtime strewn behind it like pearls,
and, yes, you can feel happy
with one piece of your heart.
Take what’s still given: in a room’s rich shadow
a woman’s breasts swinging lightly as she bends.
Early now the pearl of dusk dissolves.
Late, you sit weighing the evening news,
fast-food miracles, ghostly revolutions,
the rest of your heart.
Her passionate thoughts and her description, not only her life and ideas, but also her needs and urges, turn her erotic poetry a clear reflection of a woman’s drives that to this day have not been portrayed or dealt with such mastery and zeal. All in all, her work is that of a woman who was very much ahead of her time. And a person worth taking as an example.
November 1968
Stripped
you’re beginning to float free
up through the smoke of brushfires
and incinerators
the unleafed branches won’t hold you
nor the radar aerials
You’re what the autumn knew would happen
after the last collapse
of primary color
once the last absolutes were torn to pieces
you could begin
How you broke open, what sheathed you
until this moment
I know nothing about it
my ignorance of you amazes me
now that I watch you
starting to give yourself away
to the wind
***
If you like poetry, don’t miss these:
How To Write A Poem According To Patti Smith, The Ultimate Punk Poet
The 7 Stages Of Love We All Go Through According To French Poetry
***
