“It is always what is under pressure in us, especially under pressure of concealment--that explodes in poetry.” — Adrienne Rich Copy Share Image
I think poets should work in the non-literary, non-academic world, get to know more than a workshop or a university. — Adrienne Rich Copy Share Image
“but from here on I want more crazy mourning, more howl, more keening -from "A Woman Dead in Her Forties” — Adrienne Rich Copy Share Image
Poems are like dreams: in them you put what you don't know you know. — Adrienne Rich Copy Share Image
Poetry can open locked chambers of possibiity, restore numbed zones to feeling, recharge desire. — Adrienne Rich Copy Share Image
As a very young poet, I had been brought up on that dogma that politics was bad for poetry. — Adrienne Rich Copy Share Image
For now, poetry has the capacity - in its own ways and by its own means - to remind us of something… — Adrienne Rich Copy Share Image
“There is always an unspeakable where, perhaps, the nucleus of the living relation between the poem and the world resides.” — Adrienne Rich Copy Share Image
“Poetry, in its own way, is a carrier of the sparks, because it too comes out of silence, seeking connection with unseen… — Adrienne Rich Copy Share Image
A book of poems doesn't just come out by chance, an editor has to select it, a publisher has to distribute it… — Adrienne Rich Copy Share Image
What I discerned in the U.S. was a convergence of poetic voices coming from many different rents in the social fabric, many… — Adrienne Rich Copy Share Image
Increasingly I think of poetry as a theatre of voices, not as coming from a single "I" or from any one position.… — Adrienne Rich Copy Share Image
I guess what concerns me always is the need for a field, a rich compost, for any art to flourish. But however… — Adrienne Rich Copy Share Image
“I know you are reading this poem in a room where too much has happened for you to bear where the bedclothes… — Adrienne Rich Copy Share Image
I do not think [poetry] is more, or less, necessary than food, shelter, health, education, decent working conditions. It is as necessary. — Adrienne Rich Copy Share Image
Poetry reaches into places in us that we are suppose to ignore or mistrust, that are perceived as subversive or non-useful, in… — Adrienne Rich Copy Share Image
Poetry has always mattered, through human history, through all kinds of cultures, all kinds of violence and human desolation, as well as… — Adrienne Rich Copy Share Image
We may feel bitterly how little our poems can do in the face of seemingly out-of-control technological power and seemingly limitless corporate… — Adrienne Rich Copy Share Image
I think of poetry as something out there in the world and within each of us. I don't mean that everyone can… — Adrienne Rich Copy Share Image
“her choice to be, not only a poet but a woman who explored her own mind, without any of the guidelines of… — Adrienne Rich Copy Share Image
The kind of poetry that interests me is intellectual and moral and political and sexual and sensual - all of that fermenting… — Adrienne Rich Copy Share Image
“ With whom do you believe your lot is cast? From where does your strength come? I think somehow, somewhere every poem… — Adrienne Rich Copy Share Image
[The poet] is endowed to speak for those who do not have the gift of language, or to see for those who… — Adrienne Rich Copy Share Image
I want to gesture toward a poetry of ourselves and others under the conditions of twenty-first-century absolutism, making us dimensional in a… — Adrienne Rich Copy Share Image
“A lot is being said today about the influence that the myths and images of women have on all of us who… — Adrienne Rich Copy Share Image
“WHAT KIND OF TIMES ARE THESE There’s a place between two stands of trees where the grass grows uphill and the old… — Adrienne Rich Copy Share Image
“the phantom of the man-who-would-understand, the lost brother, the twin --- for him did we leave our mothers, deny our sisters, over… — Adrienne Rich Copy Share Image
“My own luck was being born white and middle-class into a house full of books, with a father who encouraged me to… — Adrienne Rich Copy Share Image
“[Poem II] I wake up in your bed. I know I have been dreaming. Much earlier, the alarm broke us from each… — Adrienne Rich Copy Share Image
“Poetry is above all a concentration of the power of language, which is the power of our ultimate relationship to everything in… — Adrienne Rich Copy Share Image
A revolutionary poem will not tell you who or when to kill, what and when to burn, or even how to theorize.… — Adrienne Rich Copy Share Image
Poetry can add its grain to an accumulation of consciousness against the idea that there is no alternative - that we're just… — Adrienne Rich Copy Share Image
“Responsibility to yourself means refusing to let others do your thinking, talking, and naming for you...it means that you do not treat your body… — Adrienne Rich Copy Share
What I search for continuously in my art is adequate language, language I hope can stand beyond any particular occasion. What I'm finding is… — Adrienne Rich Copy Share
“Well, she's long about her coming, who must be more merciless to herself than history. Her mind full to the wind, I see her… — Adrienne Rich Copy Share
I think my work comes out of both an intense desire for connection and what it means to feel isolated. There's always going to… — Adrienne Rich Copy Share
Popular culture entered my life as Shirley Temple, who was exactly my age and wrotea letter in the newspapers telling how her mother fixed… — Adrienne Rich Copy Share
... in a history of spiritual rupture, a social compact built on fantasy and collective secrets, poetry becomes more necessary than ever: it keeps… — Adrienne Rich Copy Share
It's as if, in the mother's eyes, her smile, her stroking touch, the child first reads the message:'You are there!' — Adrienne Rich Copy Share
The women's movement appeared at a very crucial moment in my life. There was a whole political movement asking such questions and others I… — Adrienne Rich Copy Share
The word revolution itself has become not only a dead relic of Leftism, but a key to the deadendedness of male politics: the revolution… — Adrienne Rich Copy Share
The decision to feed the world is the real decision. No revolution has chosen it. For that choice requires that women shall be free. — Adrienne Rich Copy Share
The necessity of poetry has to be stated over and over, but only to those who have reason to fear its power, or those… — Adrienne Rich Copy Share
I think many poets, including myself, write both for the voice and for the page. I certainly write for the person alone in the… — Adrienne Rich Copy Share
If I cling to circumstances I could feel not responsible. Only she who says she did not choose, is the loser in the end. — Adrienne Rich Copy Share
![“I do not think [poetry] is more, or less, necessary than food, shelter, health, education, decent working conditions. It is as necessary.” quote by Adrienne Rich](https://sms4smile.com/q/img-quotes/704/adrienne-rich-803_conditions_i-do-not-think-poetry-is-more-or-less-ne_1155959.png)
![“[The poet] is endowed to speak for those who do not have the gift of language, or to see for those who - for whatever reasons - are less conscious of what they are living through. It is as though the risks of the poet's existence can be put to some use beyond her own survival.” quote by Adrienne Rich](https://sms4smile.com/q/img-quotes/a5d/adrienne-rich-803_conscious_the-poet-is-endowed-to-speak-for-those-w_270364.png)
![“[Poem II] I wake up in your bed. I know I have been dreaming. Much earlier, the alarm broke us from each other, you’ve been at your desk for hours. I know what I dreamed: our friend the poet comes into my room where I’ve been writing for days, drafts, carbons, poems are scattered everywhere, and I…” quote by Adrienne Rich](https://sms4smile.com/q/img-quotes/402/adrienne-rich-803_long-way_poem-ii-i-wake-up-in-your-bed-i-know-i-h_1124584.png)
