Class Blog

The scream

of an illegitimate voice

It has ceased to hear itself, therefore

it asks itself

How do I exist?”

Riche has often stated the importance of telling one’s own story. In this poem, she describes the sad reality of those unable to use their voice in such a way. The voices of minorities are referred to as “illegitimate”, because of how strongly the forces of society work against them. She also speaks to the frustration of a person in this situation, imagining that they not simply speak, but scream to be heard. Minorities have a history of being robbed of their chance to immortalize their voice and therefore immortalize themselves. Here, Riche uses very poignant language to refer to dealing with this idea of being unheard. She even goes so far as to question whether an unheard voice even exists.

What I am really trying to say here is I think Riche is writing in honor of those that have lived their lives without being allowed to fully exist—the minorities so unfairly neglected by the world.

“I put my hand on your thigh to comfort both of us, your hand came over mine, we stayed that way, suffering together in our bodies, as if all suffering were physical, we touched so in the presence of strangers who knew nothing and cared less vomiting their private pain as if all suffering physical” (Rich, 148).

When I first read this, I noticed that pain and suffering was a very dominant theme throughout it. One phrase that immediately stood out to me was, “as if all suffering were physical” and it was repeated several times throughout this particular stanza. I think Rich means that people are acting as if just touching each other will ease the pain, when in fact the suffering occurs internally. The phrase can also mean that suffering has the ability to bring them together and that the presence of others can help heal. The word choice by Rich feels very distance, for example, she used phrases “strangers”, “cared less”, “private pain”. It is because usually when we suffer we have our loved ones around. But in these lines, strangers are suffering with one another. What I am trying to say here is that I think these lines are trying to represent that if one is suffering, people tend to hug them or touch them as if that is what will heal the pain. We need to understand that pain comes within and there are different types of suffering, which may not all be noticeable.

Lines Focused on:

And the truth of briars she had to have run through

I craved to feel on her pelt if my hands could even slide

past of her body slide between then sharp truth distressing

surfaces of fur

Adrienne Rich’s poem “Fox” is particular in its slight differences from some of Rich’s other poems in her collection. This specific poem is more subtle in addressing its meanings and themes, however, Rich still incorporates several of the same ideas she address’s in her other poems. While reading the poem for the first time the first four lines, of the second stanza, particularly stood out at me. The passage, seemingly about a fox in its natural habitat, is much more than the animalistic creature Rich subjects it to be. The fox may symbolize another individual, most likely another woman, on the account that she regards the fox as female in the first line of this stanza. The speaker yearns for the fox’s, or women’s, attention “crav[ing] to feel her pelt if my hand could even slide.” On several accounts Rich incorporates the erotic into her poems, a sensation that is deeply, yet openly, embedded within her life. In these specific lines, the erotic is exemplified through diction Rich choices to use to describe her desire to be close to this woman (fox). The line breaks are also significant in that between the words “pelt” and “if” we see another hypothetical, an instance of thought that reoccurs throughout Rich’s poems. As she desires this women, in her natural habitat, like the fox in nature, she questions if her body could really allow her to be with her, “if my hands could even slide.” This line makes me wonder if there is something or someone stopping her from letting her “slide past or her body slide between them” because of the use of the word “if,” and this hypothetical scenario.

“The technology of silence

 

the rituals, etiquette

 

the blurring of terms

 

silence not absence” (Rich, 139-140)

 

Silence is often seen as an absence of sounds. In the poem “Cartographies of Silence” Adrienne Rich begins to break down that common word. Silence starts to become a process as Rich refers to silence as a “ritual and etiquette” (139). However, in other stanzas silence begins to become a way of communication. Rich constantly repeats, “silence not absence” (140).  One of the many interpretations of this could be that silence is just as loud as speaking. Rich also states silence is the “blueprint to life” (140). She evokes the thought that silence does in fact lay out life. Without silence, there would be no words. In order to create words, you must think about them. I believe that in this poem Rich is trying to change what we consider silence and make it a much more powerful word. She gives power and movement to silence. Even in the title, “Cartographies of Silence”, she shows how different unique maps of silence can be made. There’s an art to drawing maps just like there is an art to being silent. In the beginning of the poem Rich writes “a poem can begin with a lie. And be torn up” (139), while she goes on to say a conversation “cannot be torn” (139). This emphasizes how when you speak out loud, language can never be taken back but when you speak through silence, in this case poetry, you have to face what you wrote. However, like a map, silence is not the journey itself. Rich states “this is the silence I wanted to break in you” (141). Thus, silence creates a frame for life but it does not start the construction, therefore, there is a point where you must use silence to build and begin to speak.

“Every peak is a crater. This is the law of volcanoes, making them eternally and visibly female. No height without depth, without a burning core” (Rich, 148).

When I think of a volcano I think of a natural structure that waits idly by until it finally erupts, often destroying what’s around it. I interpreted “Every peak is a crater” as that no matter how “okay” somebody seems on the outside, there is some hidden demon waiting to erupt on the inside. No matter how strong a love appears to be, it has its weaknesses. If a person were to be a volcano, they would be oppressed, holding in something so great, silencing their voice for so long, until they finally explode. In society, and as expressed in other Rich’s poems like Power, females are often expected to keep quiet and left to decide whether or not to stand up and speak or blend in and be safe. Regarding emotions, there is such a fine line to what is acceptable emotions and what is not and I think when a volcano explodes it is that individual not being able to contain their emotions any longer. Rich compares volcanos to being a female with a burning core and throughout these 21 Love Poems, Rich’s core is clearly burning with the desire to erupt all of her emotions (in this case, on paper). I think she also makes the volcano female because men have a voice in society and don’t usually get to the point of needing to explode. I also found it interesting that most of Rich’s poems were run on thoughts and thoughts carried out throughout the poem, but in these few lines she is very cut, clear, and short about her points, but it means so much. I think she wrote it like this because these assumptions about emotions and women are just a fact of society and needs to be blatantly stated.

“She died a famous woman denying

her wounds

denying

her wounds came from the same source as her power” (p. 135)

 

What initially caught my eye in this stanza was the juxtaposition of her wounds and her power and how they are both born from the same source. After reading the subsequent poems in the book, it becomes apparent that the author almost always mentions suffering when mentioning power and vice versa. The two seem inherently linked. My first thought was to relate this to something that we’ve been discussing in my Women and Gender Studies class. In the 19^th century, women were expected to be domestic and submissive to their husbands, tethered to the home and hearth. However, many of the women of that time actually claimed that the home was where they felt most powerful, where they were in charge of shaping the men of the industrial revolution and therefore the future of the country. Their home was both their oppressor and their source of power. I also found the repetition of the phrase “denying her wounds” striking. This denial is clearly important; perhaps we (as women) must deny our wounds, or our weaknesses, in order to achieve power in the misogynistic power dynamic we exist in? Furthermore, perhaps as women gain more power, we become that much more exposed and open to attack. Female politicians, for example, are held to a much higher degree of scrutiny and mudslinging than male politicians are. Perhaps as women ascend to higher positions of power, they are exposed to a whole new slew of wounds and attacks. Yet in order to maintain a position of power, or even gain more power, women must deny that the very thing that gives them power is killing them.

“The scream

of an illegitimate voice

It has ceased to hear itself, therefore

it asks itself

How do I exist?” – Adrienne Rich

The most striking pattern of note from this passage is the repetition of the word “it” in the second stanza. The word choice of “it” rather than “he” or “she” indicates that the scream is coming from someone that feels inhuman – inhuman because of their (or “it”) inability to be heard not only by others, but also hear themselves. Despite not being able to be heard, the fact that Lorde serves as this being’s voice is significant to note as well. Lorde, in The Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power notes the oppression of minority women that has resulted from the “exclusively European-American male tradition” (Lorde, 1978, 91). By serving as the voice of what presumably is a minority woman who doesn’t feel human, Rich is breaking down the doorframe of that male tradition. Rich not only hears this voice, she hears it as a scream. She serves, essentially, as a messenger for all who feel inhuman due to their inability to be heard – not just this particular being.

In terms of Rich’s poem overall, she touches on a number of key themes – one of which is the power of silence. In an earlier poem, she makes a key distinction. She writes about the difference between choosing to be silent and being silenced. There is a certain power associated with that choice – this can be seen in the real world with the significance of silent protests. Somehow, these silent protest seem more effective and powerful than louder, more outspoken forms of protest.

“Until we find each other, we are alone”

The last line of Adrienne Rich’s poem “Hunger” dedicated to Audre Lord reads “Until we find each other, we are alone”. This powerful line grabbed my attention immediately and made me think of sisterhood and representation. There is a sense of aimless wandering many women of color experience within this lifetime that can often be connected to this feeling of being othered. We often find ourselves feeling isolated from larger social spaces due to the differences in our physicality’s that render us exotic, and the intersections of our oppressed identities. In navigating spaces where we forced to battle hypervisibility and invisibility many of women of color can often find themselves feeling a sense of detachment and beyond that they feel unwelcomed. So when I read “Until we find each other, we are alone” I know Rich is making a reference to the importance of sisterhood and representation. She dedicates the poem to Audre Lord, a black feminist, lesbian, poet, mother, and warrior. Audre Lord is an important figure to many black women because through her moving presence that can be found within her words many black women, including myself were able to not only connect with her words, but come to the realization that they are not alone. This is what Rich is delivering in the last stanza of the poem. The moment marginalized women connect with each other and create spaces where they are able to openly and freely be themselves unapologetically they will no longer carry the burden of lonesome for they can now look in the eyes of women who know and understand their struggles and feel a sense of solace. This is why her two uses of the word we contribute heavily to the understanding of why she’s speaking of representation through poetry. This passage is another constant reminder, like many I the novel of this idea of suffering due to oppression and the importance of solidarity. I think the author uses poetry as a means of artistic expression to put suffering women face in a language that will cause the audience to critically analyze the ways marginalized women grapple with suffering.

The lines I chose to analyze from the poem Hunger were: “I’m alive to want more than life/ want it for others starving and unborn/ to name the deprivations boring/ into my will, my affections, into the brains/ of daughters, sisters, lovers caught in the crossfire/ of terrorists of the mind”(Rich 138).   The first cluster or repetition I see is in the first line with the words “alive” and “life.”  There are also the words “daughters, sisters, lovers” which all refer to women so I know the poem is targeting women or more specifically lesbian women or women of color.  There is the repetition of the word “want.”  I think using the phrase “terrorists of the mind” to describe any type of oppressor is really powerful because it shows that oppression is an act of terror and it stops people from being true to themselves and doing what they want and expressing their erotic because it is a way of messing with one’s mind and deceiving them to think that there is only few options for one’s own life.  I think Rich is convincing women that their power is endless and they can make more for themselves than what they are offered by society.  Rich says she “want[s] it for others starving and unborn” which puts the idea more broadly saying that every woman should feel empowered no matter what condition they are in and for women to come.  What I am really trying to say here is that I think these lines make the oppression of women more violent through her word choice of “terrorists of the mind” expressing that women have endless power through their erotic but are constantly terrorized to hide it.

The lines that I chose were prom the power Hunger which stated “Even our intimacies are rigger with terror/ Quantify suffering?/ My guilt at least is open” (pg. 137). The first thing that stuck out to me about this essay was the fact that she dedicated this poem to Audre Lorde. Audre Lorde is someone that I love and appreciate so much because her works have played an integral part in the person that I have become personally and intellectually. The first line “even our terrors are rigged with terror” reminded me of one of the many themes that always come up in the work of Audre Lorde, which is this idea of genuinely vulnerable intimacy and communities between women.So often there are these attempts at female bonding and relationships, but event hose that we think are the most powerful are still flawed. It is not until we give up this need for power and accepting that we will be able to truly be ourselves with ourselves and others. The next of the poem says “Quantify suffering?’ which reminded me of the heterosexist, patriarchal society that we live in which both of these women, Lorde and Riche, so often speak out against. She is explaining the fact that the problems she going through are not the only problems, yet they are her problems and still exist nonetheless. The last line of my chosen stanza  says “My guilt is at least open.” I think that in this line she is referring some of the privileges that some people have over other people. Since she dedicated this piece to Audre Lorde, she may be talking about the privileges that cisgendered, heterosexual white woman possess. I think these lines reshape the idea of language and thought by acknowledging issues that are in certain spaces that are supposed to be protective, like the door frame. For instance, a supposed safe and healthy space for women to exist is created, but the space is only safe and healthy for able bodied white women. These lines are important for my understanding of the reshaping of ideas and language because it exists to bring light to specific issues and then offer some solutions.