Product Description
A reissue of the classic Adrienne Rich selection, revised and expanded to cover the entirety of her career, with a new Introduction.

The Fact of a Doorframe is the ideal introduction to Rich's opus, from her formative lyricism in A Change of Word (1951), to the groundbreaking poems of Diving into the Wreck (1973), to the searching voice of Fox (2001). ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

Rich's uncompromising passion...
I first posted this under "The School Among the Ruins" but it really belongs here:

In 1988 my ardent feminist girlfriend gave me a copy of "The Fact of a Doorframe" (the 1984 edition) and told me not to speak to her again until I finished reading it.This seemed an odd request, but since I really wanted to speak to her again, I read it.Rich's uncompromising passion not only moved me; it started a process that changed my view of the world and ended up changing my life.I guess you should expect that from a writer this powerful.

P.S.I particularly love "Your Native Land, Your Life", "The Dream of a Common Language", and "What is Found There".("What is Found There" is supposed to be essays and letters but it seems like poetry to me.)

America's greatest living poet
I was privileged to hear Rich read some of her poetry back in 1973 while living in Cambridge, Mass. All I remember of that evening is the image of a distinguished-looking, gray-haired woman dressed in black reading serious poetry that did not try to be funny or cute. I guess that may be why, when I went through a difficult divorce seven years ago, I found myself reading from this book late into the night, soaking up the unforgettable images, and somehow using these deep poems as a ladder of sorts to climb out of the hole of depression I found myself trapped in.

You know when you have been touched to the core by great poetry: Read, or better, record yourself reading 'Diving into the Wreck', then listen to it some night late when you are in a contemplative mood. Likewise, 'Shooting Script', 'Pierrot le Fou', 'Integrity' or any number of other poems in this book. Unforgettable mythic imagery; deep imagery that resonates with the psyche. It makes not one dime of difference whether you are male or female, since deep inside we're all in some profound sense androgynous.

From 'Shooting Script':

"But this is not the war I came to see, buying my ticket, stumbling through the darkness, finding my place among the sleepers and masturbators in the dark."

"Somewhere someone has that war stored up in metal canisters, a memory he cannot use, somewhere my innocence is proven with my guilt, but this would not be the war I fought in."

Here Rich is not talking about some external war, but a very personal war, her war. As with the great Bhagavad Gita, where the warrior Arjuna turns in anguish to his spiritual guide Sri Krishna for answers while on the field of battle, this battlefield in Rich's poem is the war within, the struggle for self-mastery that every human being must wage. It is a mythic war, inwardtoward the true kernel of the self.

The criticism sometime leveled at Rich is that she is feminist and overly political. Of course, she does not endorse the images of a culture in which if you're white, male, heterosexual, there is the implication that you 'own' the world and you get to decide what's history, what's literature. She rightly disputes that wisdom. And it's also questionable how one can avoid making a political statement if you write serious poetry; almost everything one does or says has political undertones.

While this particular edition is OK, to contain 50 years worth of Rich's poetry in just one slender volume such as this does not really do her justice. The edition I own is "Poems Selected and New: 1950-1984". That is a much better collection. This edition, for example, contains a much-abbreviated version of Shooting Script, and other key poems have been cut out. For this reason, I recommend that you look for the 1984 version of this book.

A Poet of Process
Adrienne Rich is anything but a knee jerk feminist propagandist.She's one of America's most important poets, and this volume charts the first part of her journey.What's most striking about Rich is her refusal to settle into any comfort zone: political, psychological, aesthetic.She is most certainly a poet with a strong public voice, but she uses that voice in a way that challenges all of us who care about the meaning of creativity in a democratic society.The early volumes collected her present Rich as a poet who has absolutely mastered the formal demands of modernist poetry; her peers are Yeats, Frost and W.H. Auden.But, responding to the constraints of life in 50s and early 60s America, she recreated herself in books like Snapshots of a Daughter-in-Law and The Will to Change.She experiments with the radical politics and art forms of the 60s, engages in the battles against white supremacy, patriarchy, and moral complacency in all its forms.And at each turn, she examines her own premises and poetry with a seriousness akin to that of James Baldwin or Toni Morrison.But mostly, she writes poems that will sink in deep and repay renewed visits over the decades: "Diving into the Wreck," "Aunt Jennifer's Tigers," "The Burning of Paper Instead of Children," "21 Love Poems."Read her and you'll know what her critics are afraid of.

She's playing tennis with the net down
Terrible feminist propaganda that trashes any and all men even if they consider themselves to be feminist. No rhyme, no meter except in her really early stuff, which is the only tolerable bit in the entire book.

"A woman in the shape of a monster
a monster in the shape of a woman
the skies are full of them"

need I say more? Elitist garbage that can't hold a candle to Thomas, Poe, Tennyson, Dickinson, Yeats, Plath, Eliot, and you can probably include yourself in this list. If you actually enjoy reading this, take out a personal ad or load a gun - one of the two...with everything out there, don't waste your time on this rubish.

Lovely, sharp language
I don't read poetry on a regular basis, but I loved this book of work by Adrienne Rich.Every time I page through it I find something new to catch my eye. ... Read more

Product Description
This Norton Critical Edition presents the work of one of America's foremost poets. It moves well beyond the scope of its predecessor, Adrienne Rich's Poetry (1975), in giving proper recognition to Rich's extraordinary achievements in both poetry and prose in recent years. The result is a judiciously edited, sensibly annotated volume ideally suited for classroom study of one of our most distinguished working writers.In both poetry and prose, the editors have chosen selections intended to give readers a clear sense of Rich's evolution and accomplishment. Many of the poems in this expanded collection are from Rich's five recent volumes—The Dream of a Common Language (1978), A Wild Patience Has Taken Me This Far (1981), Your Native Land, Your Life (1986), Time's Power: Poems 1985-1988 (1989), and An Atlas of the Difficult World (1991). Prose selections include "When We Dead Awaken: Writing as Re-Vision," Rich's canonical statement on feminism; "Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence," on being a lesbian in a heterosexual world; Rich's interview for American Poetry Review, which presents a full and frank discussion of her work; and her previously unpublished commentary on the genesis of the poem "Yom Kippur 1984."

The editors have also taken into account the many essays on Rich and reviews of her work that have been published since 1975. Some earlier biographical selections have been replaced with works that focus on the quality of Rich's writing and her place in twentieth-century American literature—not just as a poet, but as a woman, a lesbian, and a mother. Criticism includes thirteen reviews and interpretations of Rich's work by W. H. Auden, John Ashbery, Margaret Atwood, Helen Vendler, Judith McDaniel, Adrian Oktenberg, Charles Altieri, and Joanna Feit Diehl, among others. A second recent study by Albert Gelpi traces the events in Rich's life from which her work evolves. An updated Chronology and Selected Bibliography, as well as an expanded Index, are included. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (9)

A "must have" for poets, essayists
I purchased this book for my research of Adrienne Rich's work. The poetryand reviews included, more than contribute to the paper. The critiques whet my appetite for more. This issue will hold my interest and help grow my style for many years. It invites me to read, read, read--write,write, write.

Selected Poems and Prose by Adrienne Rich
This book arrived in fairly good condition.A couple of pages were dogeared, but otherwise it was fine.As far as the text goes, it is very good, though quite obscure, poetry.You need a teacher to help you read it, and fortunately I have one.The footnotes were uneven.

Praise for Adrienne Rich
I'm currently teaching a six week course in Adrienne Rich's poetry and this book is excellent.It provides a good selection of her poems, plus significant prose pieces.If students choose to do so, they can read the reviews of her books, some critical essays and an interview.It's limited only in that it doesn't cover her more recent publications.

Adrienne Poor
She must be one of the favorite poets of English Lit. teachers, and one of the worst. Norton can do so much better with other poets and other authors. There are plenty of titles I would like to buy that Norton simply has ignored, and here we are with yet another edition of adrienne rich's poor talents and even poorer verse. What a waste.

Good enough for school, maybe not leisure
I had to read this for an English Lit class, and it was great. I enjoyed it so much that semester that I didn't even sell it back! But I haven't read it since, so maybe it isn't that great unless you are forced to read it. As required reading, it really is one of the best and most interesting book of poems you'll likely read. For leisure.. maybe not.

Oh! By the way, the lesbian undertones were a great and interesting surprise! And also made writing about feminist theory REALLY EASY. ... Read more

Product Description
“Adrienne Rich is the Blake of American letters.”—Nadine GordimerAcross more than three decades Adrienne Rich’s essays have been praised for their lucidity, courage, and range of concerns. In A Human Eye, Rich examines a diverse selection of writings and their place in past and present social disorders and transformations. Beyond literary theories, she explores from many angles how the arts of language have acted on and been shaped by their creators’ worlds. ... Read more

Product Description
In this collection of prose writings, one ofAmerica's foremost poets and feminist theorists reflects upon themes that have shaped her lifeand work.At issue are the politics of language; the uses of scholarship; and the topics ofracism, history, and motherhood among otherscalled forth by Rich as "part of the effort to define a female consciousness which ispolitical, aesthetic, and erotic, and whichrefuses to be included or contained in theculture of passivity." ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

feminism of its time
Rich's work remains thoughtful and provoking even now. The changing feminist consciousness revealed by her collected essays is a fascinating portrait of a growth over time. This book deserves far more than one star.

garbage
i only bought this book because i had to for one of my courses. i should have just checked one out from the library. this book is about a lesbian feminist and all her writings and opinions are outdated, with the most recent prose being written in 1978. my advice is do not waste your money ... Read more

Product Description
Adrienne Rich's influential and landmarkinvestigation concerns both the experience andthe institution of motherhood.The experience is her own—as a woman, a poet, a feminist, and amother—but it is an experience determined by the institution, imposed on all women everywhere. She draws on personal materials, history, research,and literature to create a document of universal importance. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (8)

Love Adrienne Rich...but she needs to stick to poetry
This autobiography reads like the rantings of a woman who just needs to buck up and get over it.YES, motherhood is difficult (HELLOOO), and YES you have to submit your own individual needs, wants, and desires for those of your children.The book revealed to me the utterly selfless love that Rich apparenly doesn't possess.I wonder how her children feel as they read it.

This may be the best book ever written about motherhood.
This book is a miracle.I have read dozens of books about pregnancy, birth, babies and motherhood, and this blows them all out of the water.Rich's prose is poetry, and her research and scholarship are vast and impeccable.The critical reviews that report that she "didn't like motherhood" missed the point by a long shot (and misquote her).Rich's love for her three sons is clear throughout the book, but she does not shy away from acknowledging and facing the struggles that she faced as a mother.With this book, she explores the profound historical and cultural context in which all Western women experience both the bliss and the difficulties of motherhood.Of Woman Born is a huge gift to all people-- mothers, daughters, and sons.Read it and understand.

Life Changing Book
When I first read OF WOMAN BORN, in the mid-seventies, it was a Godsend. Rich's feminist critique of the institution of motherhood elucidates the source of so many of the world's problems. When women, the source of life, the life givers, the ones who bear each one of us into the world, whether man or woman, are denigrated, oppressed, abused, imprisoned, and exploited by governments, religions, and cultures - everything is off-kilter. Rich accurately describes the state of motherhood in the mid-20th century and the toll it took on mothers and children. She helped me understand that the pressures mothers put on their daughters to conform to sexist stereotypes were part of the oppression they themselves were enduring. Re-reading this book over the decades, I've seen that while some things have improved for women since Rich wrote OF WOMAN BORN, we still have a long way to go before women are treated equally or given the respect they deserve for their role as life givers and nurturers. The worldwide upsurge in the revival of Fundamentalist religions that institutionalize the oppression and second-class status of mothers and their daughters is frightening, as is the rage expressed by some reviewers of this book. People who are threatened by the ideas in OF WOMAN BORN want to return to the days when women were chattel and children were seen but not heard. In the 21st century, don't we owe our children, grandchildren and the world more than the tired, worn-out worldviews that brought women and families so much pain?

An important book
Those who have criticized this book thus far here are women who derive their sole identity and sense of importance, sadly, from their role as mothers.I know women who thoroughly enjoy being mothers, but they are few and their circumstances are unique.And even some of them still have a clear need to have another identity and a life of the mind they aren't permitted within the "institution" of motherhood.I myself, and most other mothers I know, struggle with the impossible expectations placed upon us to be perfect mothers/providers/etc., struggle to create a new and healthy understanding of motherhood, struggle to do right by our children and yet hold on to our own personhood, thinking, humor,... finding ourselves too often battling with self-hatred, resentment and guilt, knowing inside that no matter what, someone will criticize us for doing it all wrong.This book exposes this unfair situation in which many women who are mothers find themselves in.If to some Rich comes off as "angry," well of course she is. It's a righteous anger. My only criticism of this book is the lack of attention it gives to the experiences of women of color and working-class women.

Right subject, wrong author
Adrienne Rich's experience as a mother is what propelled her to write this depressing look at motherhood as an institution and at the the patriarchial society that imposes its restrictions and encourages its oppression.It is her own negative experience as a mother that compells her to condemn the entire history of womanhood and its accomplishments.Did Adrienne Rich ever think that perhaps she is projecting her own experiences onto the lives of the general public?A selfish, unloving mother who felt "depressed" throughout her entire experience raising children is certainly not the one to be writing about the experience of motherhood as the general public sees it.Rather than giving practical advice in terms of empowering women, she emasculates men, choosing this as the best method to raise women.Her suggestions as to how women can overcome their "oppression" are buried somewhere underneathpoetic phrases relating to her own miserable experiences as a mother.If her kids, aren't in therapy, they should be! ... Read more

Product Description
A seventh volume of poetry involves a search to discover and reclaim what has been lost, forgotten, or unexplored. Reissue. NYT. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Favorite poet
Adrienne Rich's poetry (and her prose as well) speak with the feminine voice and touch the feminine soul.

my favorite single volume of poetry
Adrienne Rich is one of America's best poets, and this is certainly her best collection.To use the word "angst" to describe these poems (as a previous reviewer did) is to diminish these works of volcanic beauty.This collection reads very well as an organic whole, but some of the best individual poems are "Incipience," "The Stranger," and, of course, the title poem.Common themes of awakening and discovery run through this book; I wish that every women would read these poems.Rich finally shakes free of the masculine poetic establishment and rejects male mythology as she writes:

A man is asleep in the next room/ We are his dreams/ We have the heads and breasts of women/ the bodes of birds of prey/ Sometimes we turn into silver serpents

Rich dives into the wreck and comes out transformed.Don't miss this opportunity to explore your own wreck.

Years of Angst and Resolution
The poems that are included in this book are particulary noteworthy for their angst.Rich weaves words into powerful images that portray her stuggle as a woman, a lover, and as a human being.

This collection of poems was written during the early years (1971-72) of her career as a poet.Although the imagery and voice are understandably not as clearly defined as in her recent work, this book is a must read for anyone who is interested in the development of poetic voice and style. ... Read more

Product Description
"Trust Rich, a clarion poet of conscience, to get the fractured timbre of the times just right."--Booklist, starred reviewIn this new collection Adrienne Rich confronts dislocations and upheavals in the United States at the beginning of the twenty-first century. The title poem, in a young schoolteacher's voice, evokes the lessons that children ("Not of course here") learn amid violence and hatred, "when the whole town flinches / blood on the undersole thickening to glass." "Usonian Journals 2000" intercuts faces and conversations, building to a dystopic/utopic vision. Throughout these fierce and musical poems, Rich traces the imprint of a public crisis on individual experience: personal lives bent by collective realities, language itself held to account. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Rich continues to surprise...
In 1988 my ardent feminist girlfriend gave me a copy of "The Fact of a Doorframe" (the 1984 edition) and told me not to speak to her again until I finished reading it.This seemed an odd request, but since I really wanted to speak to her again, I read it.Rich's uncompromising passion not only moved me; it started a process that changed my view of the world and ended up changing my life.I guess you should expect that from a writer this powerful.She never fails to surprise me.This book is no exception.

P.S.I particularly love "Your Native Land, Your Life", "The Dream of a Common Language", and "What is Found There".("What is Found There" is supposed to be essays and letters but it seems like poetry to me.)

A pearl cast before at least one swine
No greater poet exists. The School Among the Ruins is her best work in years--she is at the top of her game. This is taut, lyric poetry. Beautiful in form and thought. And, as always with Rich, informed by excellent ethics and motives. She is a poet who has successfully challenged social injustice with her poetry. She doesn't have to justify herself to anyone--certainly not the reviewer from Ohio--but I feel I must.

There's so much better out there...
Adrienne Rich, The School Among the Ruins (Norton, 2004)

One of the blurbs on the jacket of Adrienne Rich's latest book proclaims Rich one of the poets whose every new book is cause for excitement. I can think of at least an hundred others for whom that should be true, and Rich is not one of them, especially if The School Among the Ruins is anything to go by.

It's obvious from some of the pieces here that Rich does know, or at least remember, that image should be the heart of all poetry; in the rest, however, she seems to have completely forgotten that fact, descending to the realm of political prose broken up into little lines to make it artistic. Little lines do not make poetry. Image makes poetry, and there is precious little of it to be found here. You'd be better off turning to one of the books by one of those poets whose every new work should be cause for excitement (Charles Simic, Ira Sadoff, Ted Kooser, Rochelle Theo Pienn, Debra Allbery, Heather McHugh, Elizabeth Willis, Peter Gizzi, and Dzvinia Orlowsky all come to mind very quickly), leaving this for once you've exhausted the rest of your local library's new releases shelf for poetry. ** ... Read more

Product Description
A selection of poems from nine of Adrienne Rich's earlier books, to which she adds new work and four early "lost" poems. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

A strong and lonely voice
When I read Rich's poems I often find myself imagining her as an elderly woman, firm, lonely, and frustrated in her observations.I think in my initial readings of her I must have zeroed in on the poems with less of a feminist agenda.I really enjoyed those that I found.Rereading her I can see quite a bit more of a divide between the sexes and she seems very unsettled in her view of men.I would imagine male readers would most likely be put off by this.Gender is a big deal to Rich, I'd be lying if I said otherwise.Because we have an inundation of ruminations like those today, her message might be somewhat dated--especially to younger people, but if you consider the era in which these poems were written, it was a timely subject.To quote one of the last line in "From an Old House in America":"Any woman's death diminishes me."I know some people panned the newest additions to this collection (1950-2001) and feel Rich is a bit of a man-hater.I don't get the feeling that she herself is, but her poetry can certainly go bitter quickly.

Needless to say, Rich was assigned reading in college (most likely Women and Literature...), but it was one of the few poetry books that I enjoyed and have actually picked up in later years.I think some of her less political and more personal poems are striking and very beautiful.These are like little intermittent gems and make the collection worthwhile for me.My favorite poem is very short, and sort of William Carlos Williams in fashion.It's called Picnic.Five lines from it:

the chicken bones scattered
for the fox we'll never see
the children playing in the caves
My death is folded in my pocket
like a nylon raincoat

Very wistful and stark.I guess I'm mostly struck by how lonely she sounds.That's something I think we can all identify with.

A great overview of a wonderful poet
The great thing about this collection is that you can follow Rich's progress as she grows and changes and learns more about herself. Her early writing is a bit stiff and has never been a favorite of mine, but when you can see it and compare it to what she writes later, you can really see how far she has come and how much she has changed.

This book includes a wide range of her poems and will allow any reader to get a feel for her poetry without having to go and buy lots of different books by her.

There are those who get angry with her for being "too political", but I'm one who believes that ALL poetry is political. If it is not overtly political in what it SAYS then it is political in what it does NOT say. Just as inaction can often be a form of action, so all poetry is a form of political speech. Poetry is the way poets explain their world-views. Some may see the world in happy go lucky, upbeat stanzas, while others see the world a little more clearly.

To me, Rich's main accomplishment is that she comes across as being absolutely honest in everything she writes. That's an uncommon thing...even in poetry.

The Development of a Feminist Poet
Adrienne Rich (b. 1929) has developed into one of the United States' best known poets.She won the National Book Award in 1974 and received a MacArthur Fellowship in 1994.Her book, "The Fact of a Doorframe" consists of a selection she has made from her first nine volumes of poetry written between 1950 and 1983.

I found it interesting to read this book in sequence (from cover to cover) to see the development of Ms Rich's themes as a poet.The early collections, through the mid-1960s, focus on descriptions of nature and on Rich's unhappy marriage experience.For the most part, the poetry is in traditional verse formsThere is a concreteness and an accessiblity to them that will carry over into Ms. Rich's later work.I enjoyed the the early poem "At a Bach Concert" (several of Rich's poems feature her reflections on music) and her 1960 poem "Propsective Immigrants Please Note"This poem basically is a commentary on Emma Lazarus's poem, "The New Collussus"America itself, for Rich, makes no promises. She writes:"The door itself/makes no promises./It is only a door."

In the middle portions of the book, the poems become more overtly political and polemical in character.There are sharp criticisms of the War in Vietnam, of the Cold War, of the treatment of Native Americans in the United States, and of environmental desecration. This tendency in Ms Rich's poetry appears, as far as I can tell, somewhat before her focus on womens' issues and on same-sex sexual relationships. The poetry remains predominantly traditional in format although it becomes more experimental and stylistaclly free.It is didactic and clear to read.

The poetry begins to speak distinctly of womens' issues and of lesbian relationships in the collections of the late 1960s.The poems are sometimes sharp in tone, rejecting of men in many instances, and celebrate the commradeship and shared experiences of women and the tenderness that Rich finds in same-sex sexual experiences.The emphasis on mostly left political activism also continues.I found impressive Rich's long sonnet sequence "Twenty-One Love Poems" and the poem "A Woman Dead in her Forties"from the 1978 collection "A Dream of a Common Language.I also enjoyed her tribute to the Novelist Ellen Glasgow, in a late poem in the collection, "The Education of a Novelist." I enjoyed her poem on Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, much as I love that work (Ms Rich does not), and her two translations from the Yiddish poet Kadia Molodowsky.Ms Rich's poetic voice is not limited to feminist issues.

I think this is a good collection to get to understand the work of Ms. Rich.It works better than a poem or two in an anthology.In addition,as good poetry will do, the collection allows the reader to trace the development of the thoughts and feelings of some people in our country at a particular time in its poetry.Rich's poetry is a good bellweather of its age. The poetry has an earthiness an immediateness and an accesibility that will make it worth reading even for those who shy away from modern poetry.

I love this book
This tremendous collection is a threat to cowardly white males everywhere. The incredible variety of utterance and the almost unbelievable courage shown by these poems testifies to the greatness of Adrienne Rich and thepaucity of invention of typical white male poets in comparison. This is atruly important book.

interesting work here
I found Rich's poetry to be a bit sloggy in content, with her writing poems about how she doesn't like Beethoven's ninth (after Stravinsky and untold others had already condemned it) and those silly things like the'floating sonnet'. Still, she is the best of a bad lot, making most otherradical feminist lesbian poets look particularly starved for imagination. Imanaged to find someone to give this book away to. Hope she enjoys it. ... Read more

Product Description
Relationships—partings/reconciliations, solidarities/ruptures, trust/betrayal, exposure/withdrawal—are the deep fabric of this forceful work.In the intimate address of "Axel Avákar," the black humor of "Quarto," and the underground journey of "Powers of Recuperation," compressed lyrics flash among larger scenarios where images, dialogues, blues, and song spiral into political visions.Adrienne Rich has said, "I believe almost everything I know, have come to understand, is somewhere in this book."

from "Ballade of the Poverties"
     There's the poverty of wages wired for the funeral you
     Can't get to the poverty of bodies lying unburied
     There's the poverty of labor offered silently on the curb
     The poverty of yard sale scrapings spread
     And rejected the poverty of eviction, wedding bed out on street
     Prince let me tell you who will never learn through words
     There are poverties and there are poverties. ... Read more

Product Description
“Rich’s lyrics are powerful and mournful, drenched in memory.” —San FranciscoChronicle ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Adrienne Rich does it again.
Adrienne Rich---now in her late seventies---gives us another terrific book of poems dated 2004-2006.She returns to writing some formal verses, but free verse now seems her most natural form.She even tries some translations.This book is most interesting when she takes us effortlessly, it seems,from the personal to the political.

Hidden Jewels (and maybe hidden depths)
The poems here are more elliptical than Rich's early work with which I'm most familiar. Some are so dense as to be impenetrable, while others read like scattered fragments swept together into a jumble. In most, though, there's a phrase or two that shines out like a jewel. I suspect that their more hidden charms will become apparent on re-reading... ... Read more

Product Description
America's enduring poet of conscience reflects on the proven and potential role of poetry in contemporary politics and life.

Through journals, letters, dreams, and close readings of the work of many poets, Adrienne Rich reflects on how poetry and politics enter and impinge on American life. This expanded edition includes a new preface by the author as well as her post-9/11 "Six Meditations in Place of a Lecture." ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Better Late Than Never To Read A Great Book!
Adrienne Rich is my current literary hero.And, no, her What Is Found There: Notebooks on Poetry and Politics isn't about feminism. It is about remaining human and maintaining artistic integrity in the face of the dehumanizing influences of our world. Rich calls into question W. H. Auden's oft quoted line "poetry does nothing," introduces readers to marginalized poets we ignore to our own loss, and demonstrates how poetry does considerably more than one might imagine.If I could afford it, copies of her book would go to everyone on my holiday gift list.

Style and Substance
Rich's collection of essays on poetry, WHAT IS FOUND THERE, is a superb tapestry of provocative, incisive, and relevant ruminations on poetry.What I really liked about this book is Rich's ability to connect poetry to one's everyday life, not describing it as something to be read by an elite,educated few.() Still, this book moved me and, as a student of poetry, I am inspired andhopeful that poetry and the discussion of it still thrives, contrary tomany predictions.

Fabulous book on writing, the world and politics!
One of the best books on the place of poetry in the world.A beautifully written collection of prose that discusses the integral connection between poetry and politics.Rich shows the power and passion of the written wordand the changes it is able to bring about.Passionately written andsurprisingly easy to read. ... Read more

Product Description
Throughout this book, a milestone in the poet's work and in the poetry of our time, Rich gathers images of our lives and focuses them blindingly in memory's "smoky mirror." As always, she maps out new territory, charting the landscapes of our lives amid the beauties and cruelties of a difficult world.Amazon.com Review
The heart of Adrienne Rich's award-winning collection beats in its titlesequence, 13 poems charting "An Atlas of the Difficult World." LikeAtlas, who bears Earth on his shoulders, Rich bears--and wields--anenormous political consciousness. These poems find her struggling to saywhat is honest and true, resisting easy answers, having the ambition torisk everything; these are the energies for which her readers return. Forexample, after deriding as solipsistic the poetry of Richard Hugo, shewrites:

I wonder if this is a white man's madness.
I honor your truth and refuse to leave it at that.
What have I learned from stories of the hunt, of lonely men ingangs?
But there were other stories...

Customer Reviews (5)

"it will be short, it will not be simple"
Adrienne Rich, one of America's best contemporary poets, focuses on the best and worst in humanity in "An Atlas of the Difficult World." This 60-page volume, presents her unique perspective on multiple subjects including the working conditions of migrant workers, the horrors of the Holocaust, and murder on the Appalachian Trail. Many of these poems, inspired by actual events, are briefly explained in the "Notes" section. As an atlas is a collection of maps and illustrations about a particular place or subject, "Atlas" is a collection of poems that illustrate the heroism of the small and powerless as well as the brutality of humanity against itself.

Divided into two sections, the first reflects the restlessness of Americans. The poems move between Vermont and California and places in between (11). These are also meditations on the extremes in human personality. Consider the brief glimpse of domestic violence on page 4 contrasted with the heroism of a young Irish immigrant, who became an inspirational teacher (15). Rich's poems reflect the constant movement of humanity from one place to another, for one reason or another.

In the second section, other poems extend the theme of arrival or departure by chance or by choice. Read the collection of poems in "Eastern War Time" and notice how Rich uses the words of a telegram to great effect (36-37).

To pick one representative poem from this book above all the others belies the importance of the whole. Yet, Rich's last poem in "Atlas," "Final Notations," encompasses the overall theme of the book as well as her poetry:"it will be short, it will not be simple" (pg. 57, line 4). Read Rich's poetry with this line in mind and you will realize the profound depths and intricacies of her poetry.

American Poetry Lovers Must-read
An Atlas of the Difficult World is a must-read for Adrienne Rich fans or anyone interested in contemporary American poetry. This volume is surprisingly short (only 60 pages long), but the material seems rather dense (in my opinion). This volume of poetry is broken into two sections. The first section is the longer poem "An Atlas of the Difficult World" that is broken into thirteen parts. The second section is comprised of twelve shorter poems. A couple of works in section II titled "Eastern War Time" and "Through Corralitos under Rolls of Cloud" are broken into smaller parts. This volume of poetry deals with political issues such as war, the establishment of a female identity, and difficult subjects such as abuse, murder, and anti-Semitism. There are a few poems in this collection that definitely stand out for me. "Eastern War Time" parts 1-6 show young Jewish girls trying to find out who they are in the midst of WWII: "what's an American girl / in wartime...ignorantly Jewish / trying to grasp the world / through books" (lines 2-3, 6-8). Another touching poem in this collection is "Tattered Kaddish," which embodies the bitter irony of singing praises to life when so many are suffering: "Praise to life though it crumbled in like a tunnel / on ones we knew and loved" (lines 6-7). Part one of "An Atlas of the Difficult World" contains a short stanza that captures a horrific scene of abuse. Yet the speaker wishes to turn a deaf ear ("I don't want to hear") to such "devastation." This selection left me with an image I find hard to forget.For anyone who does not take poetry seriously, this collection will not be worth the time. Although many of the poems seem to have a clear message, I feel that some of the works require the reader's attention, devotion, and close reading to fully appreciate the messages Rich is divulging. True American poetry aficionados will value this great volume of poetry.

"There are roads to take."
I have revisited this book many times since it was published ten years ago.In her 13-poem collection, Rich turns her penetrating poet's gaze to "the difficult world"--malathion strawberries (p. 3), missiles in the desert (p. 5), silence (p. 10), car graveyards (p. 11), waste (p. 11), Wounded Knee, Los Alamos, Selma (p. 12), death on the Appalachian Trail (p. 14), and loneliness (p. 19).These are not "feel-good" poems, and the title poem is stronger than others.

"These are not the roads you know me by," she writes in her Whitman-like title poem, "but the woman driving, walking, watching from life and death is the same" (p. 5).As these poems reveal, Rich writes with stunning honesty from her heart, soul, and the marrow of her bones (p. 51).

G. Merritt

The signal work of an important American poet
I'm surprised no substantial reviews of *Atlas* have been posted, as anyone who has read it knows that Rich's survey of American life during the Gulf War era (in the title poem) is an unforgettable document of our time.Rich is known as a feminist writer and radical critic, and that impression scares off undergraduates for whom feminism is too loaded a term.This book, especially the title poem, "Eastern War Time," and "Tattered Kaddish," shows that Rich's feminist insight does not limit her attention--or relevance--to women subjects and readers.

Many lines from "An Atlas of the Difficult World" stay with me, but from its final section, I'll give this as an example of how Rich strives to find in her readers equal partners, sharing her task of representing all of American life:

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 because there is nothing else left to read there where you have landed, stripped as you are.

Rich sees her readers as stripped of innocence, of the ability to make casual assumptions about their lives in America and the world.But these poems offer the gift of understanding our current state, and of a beautiful, surprisingly generous description of us all.

Very touching...
It is a touching example of poetry expressing life's struggles.Anyone can relate to Rich's amazing words and thoughts.Please give this book a try! ... Read more

Product Description
These essays trace a distinguished writer's engagement with her time, her arguments with herself and others. "I am a poet who knows the social power of poetry, a United States citizen who knows herself irrevocably tangled in her society's hopes, arrogance, and despair," Adrienne Rich writes. The essays in Arts of the Possible search for possibilities beyond a compromised, degraded system, seeking to imagine something else. They call on the fluidity of the imagination, from poetic vision to social justice, from the badlands of political demoralization to an art that might wound, that may open scars when engaged in its work, but will finally suture and not tear apart. This volume collects Rich's essays from the last decade of the twentieth century, including four earlier essays, as well as several conversations that go further than the usual interview. Also included is her essay explaining her reasons for declining the National Medal for the Arts. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Delicately created and stimulating
If you have ever thought about the relationship between art and politics, or art and social justice, Adrienne Rich's collection of essays and conversations is a must read.

In "When We Dead Awaken" (Chapt 1) - Interweaving prose and poetry, Rich demonstrates how she slowly came to terms with her identity as a female poet - a process she termed, "awakening of dead or sleeping consciousness."A process that would seem vital for any oppressed group, Rich explains how after years of sleepwalking, under the direction of men, women were slowly "awakening," re-visioning their past and drawing conclusions on the present.

The book alone is worth reading simply for the 3rd chapter, a philosophical and feminist perspective on lying."Women and Honor: Some Notes on Lying" is a unique and compelling treatise on the causes and effects of lying.

Rich is a national treasure
Please ignore the review above. It's author seems to have missed thepoint entirely.This book is essential reading, as all of Rich's books are. One of our greatest writers.

Feminism's bad name: Adrienne Rich
Every once in a while I wonder why, in this age, people still utter the word "feminist" as though it were an obscenity. Then I pick up one of Adrienne Rich's books, and I think, Oh yeah. That's why.

Arts of the Possible purports to be a text on aesthetics, but it winds up more of a text on Adrienne Rich. The "essays" include "Notes" for several talks she's given, and unlike most essays titled "Notes," these really are just her notes, without any effort to flesh them in; the full text of other speeches; some singularly unenlightening "conversations," where she displays her disheartening lack of an understanding of literature; and a few legitimate essays, most that have appeared in other anthologies. In fact, the title piece to her previous collected prose, Blood, Bread and Poetry, is here.

Her argumentative strategy mostly consists of rambling a bit about herself, especially the horrors of growing up in a house filled with books of poetry by white men, making some vague, unsupported, barely-arguable generalizations ("the reading of poetry in an elite academic institution is supposed to lead you. . . not toward a criticism of society, but toward a professional career in which the anatomy of poems is studied dispassionately"--since when?), drawing even more generalized conclusions, and then ranting about the wickedness of capitalism or patriarchy. Often, she takes swings at big-business publishing's utter lack of an aesthetic and slavery to the bottom line, claiming that the larger houses print nothing of worth. What press is this book on? Norton, a behemoth if there ever was one. What press put out her last couple collecteds? Norton. What press has she published just about every volume she's ever spewed out? Norton.

Intriguing.

Many pieces hint at the theory most expounded in "Defying the Space that Separates," the reprinted introduction from the abominable 1996 Best American Poetry: poor people make better art than rich people do. It's a peculiarly Protestant notion (peculiar especially because she makes so much of her oppressed and suppressed Jewish heritage). Sure, you're starving, your teeth are falling out because you can't get decent health care, and you had to sell your baby to an infertile couple from Napersville just to pay your back rent, but you do some really powerful paintings. Not only is this ludicrous on its face, but it's made especially so considering Rich's admitted upbringing in the upper-middle class, attendance at prestigious universities, and current residence in a posh San Francisco neighborhood. She has made quite a living on fashionable compassion for a class with which she's had precious little contact.

T.S. Eliot, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and a host of miserable but financially-comfortable artists dating from the time of the Italian Rennaissance would definitely disagree with her theories, as would I. Having grown up in close contact with plenty of trailer parks and inner-city ghettos, I can guarantee that most the poor--like most the rest of America--are perfectly happy with their singing fish plaques and Jerry Springer Too Hot for TV videos. Many middle- to upper-class white Americans who feel guilty about their own privilege have proposed that disenfranchisement leads to better art. They haven't been right either.

I would put forth that this rhetoric is, in fact, dangerous to the underappreciated sects Rich claims to represent. Works like that 96 Best, which utterly sacrifice artistry and craft to present a political agenda undermine the very cause it purports to promote. If the poor, gays and lesbians, prison inmates, people of marginalized race groups, and the like are represented by bad work, the established hegemony will have every excuse to exclude them from the canon.

Rich's prose occasionally breaks into moments of genuine music, but for the most part it's painfully self-aggrandizing, and at times even offensively so. Arts of the Possible feels like nothing so much as a last-ditch effort by a woman who fears she'll be remembered as a radical instead of a writer, or worse, forgotten entirely.

Those of us who take both our politics and our art seriously can only hope that last will indeed come to pass, and that our work will be considered fairly, out of the ugly shadow writers like Rich currently cast on anyone whose muse has a political bent.

Feminism's bad name: Adrienne Rich
Every once in a while I wonder why, in this age, people still utter the word "feminist" as though it were an obscenity.Then I pick up one of Adrienne Rich's books, and I think, Oh yeah.That's why.

Arts of the Possible purports to be a text on aesthetics, but it winds up more of a text on Adrienne Rich.The "essays" include "Notes" for several talks she's given, and unlike most essays titled "Notes," these really are just her notes, without any effort to flesh them in; the full text of other speeches; some singularly unemlightening "conversations," where she displays her disheartening lack of an understanding of literature; and a few legitimate essays, most that have appeared in other anthologies.In fact, the title piece to her previous collected prose, Blood, Bread and Poetry, is here.

Her argumentative strategy mostly consists of rambling a bit about herself, especially the horrors of growing up in a house filled with books of poetry by white men, making some vague, barely-arguable statements of generalization ("the reading of poetry in an elite academic institution is supposed to lead you. . . not toward a criticism of society, but toward a professional career in which the anatomy of poems is studied dispassionately"--huh?), drawing even more generalized conclusions, and then ranting about the wickedness of capitalism or patriarchy.Often, she takes swings at big-business publishing's utter lack of an aesthetic and slavery to the bottom line, claiming that the larger houses print nothing of worth.What press is this book on?Norton.What press put out her last couple collecteds?Norton.What press has she published just about every volume she's ever spewed out?Norton.

Intriguing.

In many pieces she hints at the theory most expounded in "Defying the Space that Separates," the reprinted inntroduction from the abominable 1996 Best American Poetry: poor people make better art than rich people do.It's a peculiarly Protestant notion (peculiar especially because she makes so much of her oppressed and suppressed Jewish heritage).Sure, you're starving, your teeth are falling out because you can't get decent health care, and you had to sell your baby to an infertile couple from Napersville just to pay your back rent, but you do some really powerful paintings.Not only is this ludicrous on its face, but it's made especially so considering Rich's admitted upbringing in the upper-middle class, attendance at prestigious universities, and current residence in a posh San Francisco neighborhood.She has made quite a living on fashionable compassion for a class with which she's had precious little contact.

T.S. Eliot, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and a host of miserable but financially-comfortable artists dating from the time of the Italian Rennaissance would definitely disagree with her theories, as would I.Having grown up in close contact with plenty of trailer parks and inner-city ghettos, I can guarantee that most the poor--like most the rest of America--are perfectly happy with their singing fish plaques and Jerry Springer Too Hot for TV videos.Many middle- to upper-class white Americans who feel guilty about their own privilege have proposed that disenfranchisement leads to better art.They haven't been right either.

I would put forth that this rhetoric is, in fact, dangerous to the underappreciated sects Rich claims to represent.Works like that 96 Best, which sacrifice artistry and craft to present a political agenda undermine the very cause it purports to promote.If the poor, gays and lesbians, prison inmates, people of marginalized race groups, and the like are represented by bad work, the established hegemony will have every excuse to exclude them from the canon, based on quality and importance in the history of literature.

Rich's prose occasionally breaks into moments of genuine music, but for the most part it's painfully self-aggrandizing, and at times even offensively so.Arts of the Possible feels like nothing so much as a last-ditch effort by a woman who fears she'll be remembered as a radical instead of a writer, or worse, forgotten entirely.

Those of us who take both our politics and our art seriously can only hope that last will indeed come to pass, and that our work will be considered fairly, out of the ugly shadow writers like Rich now cast on anyone whose muse has a political bent. ... Read more

Product Description
National Book Award finalist Adrienne Rich (An Atlas of the Difficult World) is unequaled among living poets for her success in reclaiming serious poetry from scholars and returning it to the lives of general readers. Collected here for the first time are more than 200 poems: all those in her first six books plus a dozen others. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Amazing, Well written and even somewhat obscure
Adrienne Rich was one of the first feminist writers of her time. After her husbands death in 1970, she went on as angry young woman who wasn't about to let life grind her down. This collection of poetry showcases some of herbest work ever, and it well worth the read. ... Read more

Product Description
In this volume, Adrienne Rich pursues her signature themes and takes them further: the discourse between poetry and history, interlocutions within and across gender, dialogues between poets and visual artists, human damages and dignity, and the persistence of utopian visions. Here Rich continues taking the temperature of mind and body in her time in an intimate and yet commanding voice that resonates long after an initial reading. Fox is formidable and moving, fierce and passionate, and one of Rich's most powerful works to date. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A gem here and there
This book is to be read by any one who loves Adrienne Rich. There are particular poems which really impress and touch your heart. Nevertheless, if you want to make a choice between the latest book, "A School Among the Ruins" I'd suggest you to read A School. But still Foz has its own stature. ... Read more

Product Description
For 30 years, Rich's poetry has revealed the individual personal life--sexualities, loves, damages, struggles--as inseparable from a wider social condition, a world with others, in which the empowering of the disempowered is increasingly the source of hope. Time's Power shows Rich writing with unprecedented range, complexity and authority. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Something to Return to Time After Time
I'm a huge fan of Rich's work. I find myself returning over over again to this collection. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (8)

I can't recommend this book enough
I've never left a review here before, but I feel compelled to on this one. I first discovered Adrienne Rich through a college class (focused on 20th century works by women), and at first I did groan a bit, not being a real avid fan of poetry. But I ended up reading this book in it's near entirety before the class even began. The first poem I randomly flipped open to was one of the 21 love poems, I believe, and it made me cry the first time I read it (and probably all the subsequent times as well). There's something about Adrienne Rich's poetry that just reached out and touched me in a very profound way, and I don't mean to sound all snobby or whatever, I just can't explain how much her poetry has meant to me. Because of this volume (and the others I rushed out to buy after finishing this one) I was finally able to put a name on something I'd been dealing with for over 2 years, which I hadn't ever been able to describe before.

There's just something about Rich's poetry that forces us to more closely examine ourselves and the people around us, to re- asses what our lives mean. I would have given this book 10 stars if I could, and I really can't recommend it enough. Even non- fans of poetry, as I was, may find themselves hooked by her words. I wish I could thank the poet in person for what she's given me.

This is just gorgeous language
Rich, textured, honest, hard, open, The Dream of a Common Language is poetry at its most accomplished.Adrienne Rich appears to tap into the very deepest core of the human psyche here, creating a range of poems about love and loss which have a vast reach of expression and depth.For the fan of contemporary poetry, this is a collection which must be read and re-read.

changed my life
this book changed my life. it's so inspiring to see a feminist poet as rich DO what she does. it's sincere, it's powerful, it's not plath, it's personal, it calls every woman's name to feel something, to identify, and to wonder what her place is in the world. The 2nd section within the book, 21 love poems is the most romantic thing I've ever read, by far.

Emotional Catharsis through Poetry
I sat in a cushy green chair at Barnes and Noble reading these poems by Adrienne Rich and something unexplainable - almost impossible to put words to - happened to me.

I connected deeply to her messages, the words she wrote when I was a teen, might as well have been written right in the here and now.A lone tear slid down my face as I read about a woman in her 40's, like me, who was dying, not like me, who had a friend, like me, who wasn't sure how to support her in her time of need, universal.

I have experienced a lot of loss this year. The poetry of Adrienne Rich reached into my heart and let me express it more.

Isn't that what good poetry is supposed to be? A catalyst to awakening, cathartic, enriching?

Rich writes of power, female power.

She writes a poem about Paula Becker and Clara Westhoff (bride to Rainer Rilke, another favorite poet of mine.)

My favorite is "Transcendent Etude" which is, indeed, transcendent.

"No one ever told us we had to study our lives, make our lives a study..."

Study these poems and dive deeper into your life.You will not regret it.

Somebody is trying to talk to you
Years ago I was trying to keep warm at an MBTA bus stop where I read the opening lines of "The Dream of a Common Language" on a poster that advertised a reading and discussion by the author at Brandeis. I was moved to tears. I didn't get to Brandeis, but I bought and still cherish the book. ... Read more

Product Description
In the traditional of great literary manifestos, Norton is proud to present this powerful work by Adrienne Rich.With passion, critical questioning, and humor, Adrienne Rich suggests how poetry has actually been lived in the world, past and present. In this essay, which was the basis for her speech upon accepting the National Book Foundation's Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, she ranges among themes including poetry's disparagement as "either immoral or unprofitable," the politics of translation, how poetry enters into extreme situations, different poetries as conversations across place and time. In its openness to many voices, Poetry and Commitment offers a perspective on poetry in an ever more divided and violent world.

"I hope never to idealize poetry—it has suffered enough from that. Poetry is not a healing lotion, an emotional massage, a kind of linguistic aromatherapy. Neither is it a blueprint, nor an instruction manual, nor a billboard." ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Recommended For Poets
The respected elder poet exhorts poets of every age not to separate their work from the political struggles of the world. Pick up your pen & change the world!

... Read more