Adrienne Rich was one of the most influential feminist writers of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, born in May of 1929 in Baltimore, Maryland. A leading voice in the second-wave feminist movement, her collections of poems and essays won numerous awards, including the National Book Award in 1974. She declined the National Medal of Arts in 1997 in protest of the end of funding for the National Endowment for the Arts. Her first collection, published in 1951, was titled “A Change of World.” Rich passed away in 2012. Read more about Adrienne Rich.
‘Tonight No Poetry Will Serve’ by Adrienne Rich is a multilayered poem. The poet imbued it with many complex sexual and political innuendoes about power.
Saw you walking barefoot
taking a long look
at the new moon's eyelid
‘Living in Sin’ by Adrienne Rich is a deeply evocative poem. In it, the poet depicts a woman’s exceptions and contrasts them with reality.
She had thought the studio would keep itself;
no dust upon the furniture of love.
Half heresy, to wish the taps less vocal,
the panes relieved of grime. A plate of pears,
‘Planetarium’ by Adrienne Rich is a free verse poem elaborating on the triumphs and troubles of female scientists using astronomy-related metaphors. The poem also describes the wonders of the universe from the female astronomer’s perspective, thereby portraying their passion for the universe.
I am an instrument in the shape
of a woman trying to translate pulsations
into images for the relief of the body
and the reconstruction of the mind.
‘Dreamwood’ by Adrienne Rich jumps between the incredible imagination of a child to the wiser outlook of an older woman.
In the old, scratched, cheap wood of the typing stand
there is a landscape, veined, which only a child can see
or the child’s older self, a poet,
a woman dreaming when she should be typing
‘Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers’ by Adrienne Rich is a memorable poem. The speaker critiques marriage and how it has systematically oppressed women for centuries.
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.
‘Amends’ by Adrienne Rich is a beautiful poem in which the poet depicts the moon. She describes its presence in the sky and the peace it brings to humanity.
Nights like this: on the cold apple-bough
a white star, then another
exlploading out of the bark:
on the ground, moonlight picking at small stones
‘Diving into the Wreck’ by Adrienne Rich is an unforgettable poem. It uses diving as a metaphor to describe the fight for equal rights.
First having read the book of myths,
and loaded the camera,
and checked the edge of the knife-blade,
‘Power’ by Adrienne Rich is a memorable poem that focuses on the power of Marie Curie and the impact she made on her field.
Living in the earth-deposits of our history
Today a backhoe divulged out of a crumbling flank of earth
one bottle amber perfect a hundred-year-old
cure for fever or melancholy a tonic
‘Peeling Onions’ by Adrienne Rich is an introspective poem. In it, the poet uses the metaphor of peeling onions to define her complex thoughts.
her dreams and whimpers
tangled with mine,
sleeping but not asleep
behind the engine drilling
‘A Mark of Resistance’ by Adrienne Rich is a poem about individual resistance. The poet voices her solidarity with those who face discrimination from society.
Stone by stone I pile
this cairn of my intention
with the noon's weight on my back,
exposed and vulnerable
‘Storm Warnings’ by Adrienne Rich draws attention to the turbulence brewing, from the perspective of a worried resident.
This is our sole defense against the season;
These are the things we have learned to do
Who live in troubled regions.
‘Twenty-One Love Poems XIII’ by Adrienne Rich is a poem about same-sex relationships and how couples in them experience a new, uncharted love.
The rules break like a thermometer,
quicksilver spills across the charted systems,
we’re out in a country that has no language
Adrienne Rich’s ‘Orion’ explores the emotional depths of relationships and the search for self-identity amidst societal pressures.
Far back when I went zig-zagging
through tamarack pastures
you were my genius, you
my cast-iron Viking, my helmed
Adrienne Rich’s ‘A Valediction Forbidding Mourning’ describes a speaker’s inability to express her thoughts in conventional poetic decorum. Rich wrote this piece in 1970.
Adrienne Rich’s ‘Two Songs’ explores the themes of lust, physicality, and pleasure. These poems feature a speaker’s “post coitum” feelings.
‘What Kind of Times Are These’ is a poem about modern-day problems. Adrienne Rich, the poet of this piece, provides the solution at the end.
support@poemanalysis.com
Poem Solutions Limited, International House, 36-38 Cornhill, London, EC3V 3NG, United Kingdom
