Category: Fall 2016

” I know you are reading this poem which is not in your language

guessing at some words while others keep you reading

and I want to know which words they are.

I know you are reading this poem listening for something, torn

between bitterness and hope

turning back once again to the task you cannot refuse.

I know you are reading this poem because there is nothing

else left to read…”

 

This passage allows the writer to get into the reader’s head. It gets the reader to start thinking. Why am I reading this poem? What does this mean to me? I think Rich provides us with this poem so that the reader can really question themselves and their identity. It allows the reader to get out of their comfort zone  and open their eyes to what is going on in their mind. By using phrases like “I know you are…” Rich gets very personal with the reader. Rich does this to create a relationship with the reader to get them to think about themselves. In doing so, the reader takes a moment to stop and reflect. He/she is no longer numb to their daily routines, he/she is now awake and alert.

This passage relates to the whole of the novel because of its intriguing theme of the self. The poems challenge the reader by making the reader pause and reflect on themselves and what is going on around them. Like all of the poems in the novel, Rich gets into the reader’s mind. She forms a relationship with the reader that allows them to view the stories from a personal level. It is the writing of Rich that makes the reader feel as if they are almost there, witnessing the whole thing.

 

In Adrienne Rich’s poem, “Hunger”, there are many powerful lines that attracted my attention. Among several, the second stanza line “They can rule the world while they can persuade us our pain belongs in some order. Is death by famine worse than death by suicide?” evoked the most thought. A theme of the poetry read in this class thus far has been the oppression, struggle, and exclusion felt by marginalized women. In Audre Rich’s “Uses of the erotic”, the author describes how, over time, society has silenced an internal source of power in women, this power is referred to as the erotic. I felt that “Hunger” was an extension of this oppression on a wider societal level. In “Uses of the erotic”, Lorde paints the picture of a reality where women will never have the full control over their sense of the erotic. Rich takes this idea and elevates it to the next level. I interpreted the usage of “they” as an allusion to societal norms that have developed over time to normalize the mistreatment of women. The line “our pain belongs in some order” reinforces this normalization by asserting that we, women included, have been taught that societies mistreatment of women is nothing out of the ordinary. The last line “Is death by famine worse than death by suicide?” bluntly and wholly exemplifies the point being brought to light by both poets. Is it better to die on your own terms or by the rules set by our society? In terms of poetic themes, I don’t see any particular clusters, however, the passage does have a dark and despotic feel through the usage of words like rule, pain, famine, and suicide.

 

“You send me back to share my own

scars first of all with myself”

 

I don’t see any clusters of words. I see possessiveness. The poem had words like “you”, “my”, “own” and “myself”. It felt personal but the writer is focused on how the person, “you”, effected them.  The use of “First”, “Back”, “Share” is interesting. To share with one’s self is an intimate and vulnerable act. I assume she has had pain brought upon her by someone and she is dealing with herself and how she feels. I think the hardest thing to do is to look within yourself. A certain “you”, whether it is a person or not, has created a pain for someone that they have to reconcile with themselves.

“Her body bombarded for years     by the element

she had purified

…

She died     a famous woman     denying

her wounds

denying

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

In the poem “Power” Adrienne Rich describes Madame Curie’s power and the concomitant suffering she further endures with that power. Importantly, Rich states that Madame Curie’s power came not just at the same time as her suffering, but “from the same source.” I think this alludes to a theme common to many of Rich’s poems, that suffering is often the price of power. Rich indicates that the issue of suffering being inextricable from power is a problem particularly faced by woman, as she references Madame Curie’s (female) body: “she must have known she suffered from radiation sickness / her body bombarded for years by the element / she had purified.” Her body was bombarded for years by that which gave her power. I think this warrants an important comparison to Audre Lorde’s treatment of the erotic in her essay “Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power.” In Lorde’s essay, she describes the way in which the Erotic is a source of power that has long been looked down upon and suppressed in women. In order to take ownership of the Erotic and become powerful, they must subject themselves to the scrutiny of a misogynistic society, and they must suffer for it. Furthermore, as Rich points out, women must deny that they suffer at all: “She died a famous woman denying / her wounds / denying / her wounds came from the same sources as her power.” Rich’s repeats “denying her wounds” to suggest that in order to maintain one’s power, or maybe to avoid the possibility of being stripped of it, women must deny their suffering, deny their wounds. Had Madame Curie, or any woman with power, recognized and brought attention to her plight and her wounds, her weaknesses would be emphasized and would overshadow her accomplishments.

 

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.