Adrienne Rich

Adrienne Rich




On May 16, 1929, Adrienne Rich was conceived in Baltimore, Maryland. She went to Radcliffe School, graduating in 1951, and was chosen by W.H. Auden for the Yale Arrangement of More youthful Writers prize for A Change of World that same year. 


In 1953, she wedded Harvard College business analyst Alfred H. Conrad. After two years, she distributed her second volume of verse, The Precious stone Cutters, of which Randall Jarrell composed: "The writer [behind these poems] can't help appearing to us a kind of princess in a tall tale." 


Anyhow, the picture of the tall tale princess would not be seemingly perpetual. Subsequent to having three children before the age of thirty, Rich progressively changed both her life and her verse. All through the 1960s she composed a few accumulations, including Depictions of a Girl in-Law (1963) and Flyers (1969). The substance of her work turned out to be progressively threatening investigating such topics as ladies' part in the public eye, prejudice, and the Vietnam war. The style of these lyrics likewise uncovered a movement from watchful metric examples to free verse. In 1970, Rich left her spouse, who submitted suicide later that year. 


It was in 1973, amidst the women's activist and social equality developments, the Vietnam War, and her own particular individual trouble that Rich composed Jumping into the Disaster area, a gathering of exploratory and regularly irate sonnets, which earned her the National Book Recompense in 1974. Rich acknowledged the recompense for the benefit of all ladies and imparted it to her kindred candidates, Alice Walker and Audre Lorde. 


From that point forward, Rich has distributed various accumulations, including Today No Verse Will Serve: Lyrics 2007-2010 (W.W. Norton & Co., 2010); Phone Ringing in the Maze: Sonnets 2004–2006 (2006); The School Among the Remains: Lyrics 2000 (2004), which won the Book Commentators Circle Honor; Fox: Ballads 1998-2000 (2001), Midnight Rescue: Lyrics 1995-1998 (1999); Dim Fields of the Republic: Lyrics 1991 (1995); Gathered Early Lyrics: 1950-1970 (1993); A Map book of the Troublesome World: Lyrics 1988 (1991), a finalist for the National Book Grant; Time's Energy: Sonnets 1985-1988 (1989); The Truth of a Door jamb: Sonnets Chose and New 1950 (1984); and The Fantasy of a Typical Dialect (1978). 


Rich is additionally the writer of a few books of genuine composition, including Specialties of the Conceivable: Expositions and Discussions (W. W. Norton, 2001), What is Found There: Note pads on Verse and Legislative issues (1993) and Of Lady Conceived: Parenthood as Experience and Foundation (1986). 


About Rich's work, the artist W.S. Merwin has said, "All her life she has been infatuated with the trust of telling utter truth, and her summon of dialect from the first has been startlingly effective." 


Rich has gotten the Bollingen Prize, the Lannan Lifetime Accomplishment Grant, the Foundation of American Writers Partnership, the Ruth Lilly Verse Prize, the Lenore Marshall Verse Prize, the National Book Recompense, and a MacArthur Association; she is additionally a previous Chancellor of the Institute of American Artists. 


In 1997, she rejected the National Decoration of Expressions, expressing that "I couldn't acknowledge such a recompense from President Clinton or this White House on the grounds that the extremely importance of craftsmanship, as I comprehend it, is contrary with the skeptical legislative issues of this organization." She went ahead to say: "[Art] means nothing on the off chance that it basically enlivens the supper table of the force which holds it prisoner." 


That year, Rich was granted the Institute's Wallace Stevens Recompense for exceptional and demonstrated authority in the craft of verse. She passed on Walk 27, 2012, at 82 years old

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Diving into the Wreck poem

Diving into the Wreck

First having read the book of myths,
and loaded the camera,
and checked the edge of the knife-blade,
I put on
the body-armor of black rubber
the absurd flippers
the grave and awkward mask.
I am having to do this
not like Cousteau with his
assiduous team
aboard the sun-flooded schooner
but here alone.

There is a ladder.
The ladder is always there
hanging innocently
close to the side of the schooner.
We know what it is for,
we who have used it.
Otherwise
it's a piece of maritime floss
some sundry equipment.

I go down.
Rung after rung and still
the oxygen immerses me
the blue light
the clear atoms
of our human air.
I go down.
My flippers cripple me,
I crawl like an insect down the ladder
and there is no one
to tell me when the ocean 
will begin.

First the air is blue and then
it is bluer and then green and then 
black I am blacking out and yet
my mask is powerful
it pumps my blood with power
the sea is another story
the sea is not a question of power
I have to learn alone
to turn my body without force
in the deep element.

And now: it is easy to forget
what I came for
among so many who have always
lived here
swaying their crenellated fans
between the reefs
and besides
you breathe differently down here.

I came to explore the wreck.
The words are purposes.
The words are maps.
I came to see the damage that was done
and the treasures that prevail.
I stroke the beam of my lamp
slowly along the flank
of something more permanent
than fish or weed

the thing I came for:
the wreck and not the story of the wreck
the thing itself and not the myth
the drowned face always staring
toward the sun
the evidence of damage
worn by salt and sway into this threadbare beauty
the ribs of the disaster
curving their assertion
among the tentative haunters.

This is the place.
and I am here, the mermaid whose dark hair
streams black, the merman in his armored body
We circle silently
about the wreck
we dive into the hold.
I am she: I am he

whose drowned face sleeps with open eyes
whose breasts still bear the stress
whose silver, copper, vermeil cargo lies
Obscurely inside barrels
half-wedged and left to rot
we are the half-destroyed instruments
that once held to a course
the water-eaten log
the fouled compass

We are, I am, you are
by cowardice or courage
the one who find our way
back to this scene
carrying a knife, a camera
a book of myths
in which
our names do not appear.

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Aunt Jennifer's Tigers poem

Aunt Jennifer's Tigers

Aunt Jennifer's tigers prance across a screen,
Bright topaz denizens of a world of green.
They do not fear the men beneath the tree;
They pace in sleek chivalric certainty.

Aunt Jennifer's fingers fluttering through her wool
Find even the ivory needle hard to pull.
The massive weight of Uncle's wedding band
Sits heavily upon Aunt Jennifer's hand.

When Aunt is dead, her terrified hands will lie
Still ringed with ordeals she was mastered by.
The tigers in the panel that she made
Will go on prancing, proud and unafraid.

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A critique of Gabriel by Adrienne Rich

A critique of Gabriel by Adrienne Rich

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Diving into the Wreck ..Main Theme

Diving into the Wreck ..Main Theme

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Adrienne Rich

 Adrienne Rich ..1929

Born in Baltimore, Adrienne Rich describes her mother and grandmother as "frustrated artists," whose talents were denied expression by culture and circumstance. Perhaps their example, along with her father's encouragement, sparked her desire to become a writer at a time when women were still trying to prove themselves in a male-dominated arena. After graduating from Radcliffe in 1951, Rich was recognized for her poetry in the same year by W. H. Auden, who selected her first book, A Change of World, for the coveted Yale Younger Poets series. Rich's early poetry was influenced primarily by male writers, including Frost, Thomas, Donne, Auden, Stevens, and Yeats. For many young women, these men were the poets studied in high school and university classes, talked about in magazines and journals, and invited to speak at universities. Young women were exposed to relatively little poetry written by other women, and as such were taught implicitly that to write well meant to write as well as a male poet. For writers like Rich, Plath, and Sexton the struggle to find female role models and express female experience was beginning with their own work. Of course, there were examples of women poets mentoring one another, most notably the mentorship of Elizabeth Bishop by Marianne Moore, but this proved to be the exception rather than the rule. By the end of the 1950s and early 1960s, however, Rich's poetry had changed markedly as she began exploring women's issues and moving away from formal poetry toward a free verse that she saw as less patriarchal and more in tune with her true voice.

In the late 1960s, Rich, along with her husband, became active in radical politics, especially protests against the Vietnam War. In addition, she taught minority students in urban New York City, an experience that began her lifelong commitment to education, a subject that would return in her essays. Not surprisingly, her poetry reflected this intense interest in politics. This later verse features fragmented language, raw images, and looser form. At this time, Rich also began identifying herself and her work with the growing feminist movement; she also identified as a lesbian. This lesbian consciousness led to the development of poems such as "Transcendental Etude" and "The Floating Poem" that dealt explicitly with lesbian love and sex. In the 1970s, Rich began exploring feminism through essay writing. Her most famous collection of prose, Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution, combines personal accounts, research, and theory to reveal her thoughts on feminism. In the 1980s, Rich wrote a number of dialogue poems, the best-known of which is her "Twenty-One Love Poems." This series modernizes the Elizabethan sonnet sequences written by men to idealized women by directing the poems to an unnamed female lover. Other poems, penned to women like Willa Cather, Ethel Rosenberg, and the poet's grandmothers, explore further aspects of Rich's identity, including her experience as a Jewish woman.

Rich's work is known for its political radicalism and candid exploration of motherhood, feminism, lesbianism, and Jewish identity. Her role as poet, essayist, and critic has earned her an important place in contemporary feminism.
source--learner.org

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Diving into the Wreck..poem

Diving into the Wreck

First having read the book of myths,

and loaded the camera,

and checked the edge of the knife-blade,

I put on

the body-armor of black rubber

the absurd flippers

the grave and awkward mask.

I am having to do this

not like Cousteau with his

assiduous team

aboard the sun-flooded schooner

but here alone.

There is a ladder.

The ladder is always there

hanging innocently

close to the side of the schooner.

We know what it is for,

we who have used it.

Otherwise

it is a piece of maritime floss

some sundry equipment.

I go down.

Rung after rung and still

the oxygen immerses me

the blue light

the clear atoms

of our human air.

I go down.

My flippers cripple me,

I crawl like an insect down the ladder

and there is no one

to tell me when the ocean

will begin.

First the air is blue and then

it is bluer and then green and then

black I am blacking out and yet

my mask is powerful

it pumps my blood with power

the sea is another story

the sea is not a question of power

I have to learn alone

to turn my body without force

in the deep element.

And now: it is easy to forget

what I came for

among so many who have always

lived here

swaying their crenellated fans

between the reefs

and besides

you breathe differently down here.

I came to explore the wreck.

The words are purposes.

The words are maps.

I came to see the damage that was done

and the treasures that prevail.

I stroke the beam of my lamp

slowly along the flank

of something more permanent

than fish or weed

the thing I came for:

the wreck and not the story of the wreck

the thing itself and not the myth

the drowned face always staring

toward the sun

the evidence of damage

worn by salt and sway into this threadbare beauty

the ribs of the disaster

curving their assertion

among the tentative haunters.

This is the place.

And I am here, the mermaid whose dark hair

streams black, the merman in his armored body.

We circle silently

about the wreck

we dive into the hold.

I am she: I am he

whose drowned face sleeps with open eyes

whose breasts still bear the stress

whose silver, copper, vermeil cargo lies

obscurely inside barrels

half-wedged and left to rot

we are the half-destroyed instruments

that once held to a course

the water-eaten log

the fouled compass

We are, I am, you are

by cowardice or courage

the one who find our way

back to this scene

carrying a knife, a camera

a book of myths

in which

our names do not appear.

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Adrienne Rich, "Diving Into the Wreck", analysis

Adrienne Rich, "Diving Into the Wreck",  analysis

There were a ton of symbols in this poem to evaluate. I chose to concentrate on the ladder, simply because the phrase “hanging innocently” struck me as curious. So my interpretation will likely vary from whoever selects the mask, the knife, or the camera as symbols to evaluate...


As noted, Rich stated that this poem “is” an experience rather than about an experience, and I think what fits for me is the idea of searching our memories, our past. And that is a journey that can only be done alone, subjectively. So using the symbolism of the dive, and the shipwreck, it appears to me that she wants to go back and figure out what happened in her life (her journey, or course) that left her damaged in some way. 

To do this, she has to dive deep in the water, which is not pretty but black and dark, symbolizing that the journey is fearful. Rather than jump right into the water as some divers do, she has to use the ladder to slowly descend into the water, indicating hesitancy. Also, the ladder hanging off the boat requires her to face the boat as she went down. This means she literally can’t see what she is getting into: “there is no one to tell me when the ocean will begin.” So as she retreats into her memories, she’s not exactly sure at what point she’ll find clues or meaning. She says in verse 41, 42 “I have to learn alone to turn my body without force”…here she has to let go and turn away from the ladder to explore, letting go of the way out.

The ladder is significant as a symbol because it goes both ways: she could easily quit the journey and go back up. Also, because the water creates buoyancy, she really has to hold onto it to “go down”, so it’s not an easy task to go into the unknown (the sea of memories). The water would be pushing her back up, and the ladder would be so easy to just forget it and head back up to the deck. So the difficulty of the journey means that the rewards of such a journey must be greater. 

She wants to find the damage but also what is left of value; she sees something in herself flawed but she wants to inherently know she still has value, something lasting. As she looks at the damage, she shows a sense of gentleness by saying “I stroke the beam of my lamp slowly”. She wants to know “the thing itself and not the myth”, which I take to mean she wants to find the root of her problem rather than the possibly nicer/easier story that she’s told herself (or possibly the excuses she’s made for herself). 

It seems that as she explores the wreck, she finds the damage nearest the deepest part of the ship (herself) where her figurative heart is (because “the ribs of the disaster curving their assertion” are what protect the heart from damage). The mermaid and the merman she meets could represent parental figures, her origin of life, but I can’t figure out much on that, except that I think it is her parents as she says “I am she: I am he”, which a biological child could actually be, parts of both.

The reference to the journey of memories and damage could also be seen in lines 80-86: valuable things are still part of her “silver, copper, vermeil cargo lies obscurely inside” so maybe she’s trying to retrieve part of her value. As the half-destroyed instruments, the log and the compass that she mention both connotate the wreck itself: the water-eaten log sinks (the ship), the fouled compass gives poor navigation (the journey). 

But in the last few verses, as she finds her way back (we, I, you), I’m lost as to what she’s achieved in her journey. What was the knife there to cut? What would the camera record? And what is with the book of myths?
source--theblacksheepdances.com

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Diving into the Wreck ..Adrienne Rich

Diving into the Wreck

Let's start out by setting the scene for "Diving into the Wreck." There was a lot going on in the U.S. when this poem was written (in the early 1970s). There was the Vietnam War, the struggle for women's rights, and the echoes of the Civil Rights Movement of the 60s. In many ways, Adrienne Rich was a major part of that world. She was (and is) a political poet. She was angry about the war, and she was also a strong feminist voice. Rich wasn't shy about connecting her work as a poet with her feelings about social justice.

In fact, there's a story about this poem that we think says a lot about Rich, her views, and her career. When this poem appeared in 1973, it was part of a book with the same title: Diving into the Wreck. In 1974, that book won the National Book Award, a big deal for a poet. But Rich refused the award as an individual. Instead, she accepted it in the name of all unknown women writers. That was a big public gesture at a turbulent time. On the one hand, this story reminds us that Rich herself is important and influential. She's certainly won just about every poetry prize around. At the same time, she keeps a focus on the outside world, and on her responsibilities as a person and a writer.

While it's important to know the context, we don't think it'll give you the magic key to this poem. It can be helpful to know what was going on in the writer's life, but a great poem is usually about way more than just the author and her life at a particular moment. Think of these facts like a few ingredients in a delicious stew. They are certainly going to change the taste, but they don't determine everything about the finished product.

This is true about personal details from the Rich's life, too. For example, Rich's marriage collapsed a few years before she wrote this poem. Sadly, her ex-husband also committed suicide not long after that. We'd be foolish to think that those events wouldn't affect this poem. Again, they're just one ingredient. There are other flavors in here that we can't even recognize. Bottom line, this is a wide-ranging, personal, mysterious poem. We can't hope to trace all its images and ideas back to a personal tragedy or a particular political issue. The poem goes beyond any single event.

source--shmoop.com

 

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Aunt jennifer's Tigers

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