Adrienne Rich Quotes, Dogma Quotes, Poet Quotes

As a very young poet, I had been brought up on that dogma that politics was bad for poetry.

6 years ago

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Tags : Adrienne Rich Quotes , Dogma Quotes , Poet Quotes

Whatever is unnamed, undepicted in images, whatever is omitted from biography, censored in collections of letters, whatever is misnamed as something else, made difficult-to-come-by, whatever is buried in the memory by the collapse of meaning under an inadequate or lying language - this will become, not merely unspoken, but unspeakable.

6 years ago

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Tags : Adrienne Rich Quotes , Memories Quotes , Lying Quotes

Courage is not defined by those who fought and did not fall, but by those who fought, fell and rose again.

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Tags : Adrienne Rich Quotes , Fall Quotes , Recovery Quotes

You have to give your art everything you can - I don't mean only writing, but studying other poets and poetics, thinking, reading what poets have written other than their poetry.

6 years ago

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Tags : Adrienne Rich Quotes , Art Quotes , Reading Quotes

It is the thirtieth of May, the thirtieth of November, a beginning or an end, we are moving into the solstice and there is so much here I still do not understand.

6 years ago

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Tags : Adrienne Rich Quotes , Moving Quotes , May Quotes

The dialectic between change and continuity is a painful but deeply instructive one, in personal life as in the life of a people.To "see the light" too often has meant rejecting the treasures found in darkness.

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Tags : Adrienne Rich Quotes , Change Quotes , Light Quotes

Not biology, but ignorance of ourselves, has been the key to our powerlessness

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It is the lesbian in us who is creative, for the dutiful daughter of the fathers in us is only a hack.

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Tags : Adrienne Rich Quotes , Daughter Quotes , Father Quotes

My children cause me the most exquisite suffering of which I have any experience. It is the suffering of ambivalence: the murderous alternation between bitter resentment and raw-edged nerves, and blissful gratification and tenderness. Sometimes I seem to myself, in my feelings toward these tiny guiltless beings, a monster of selfishness and intolerance.

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Tags : Adrienne Rich Quotes , Children Quotes , Feelings Quotes

What I discerned in the U.S. was a convergence of poetic voices coming from many different rents in the social fabric, many cultures, many tributaries, which, together, make up the American poetry of the late twentieth century.

6 years ago

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Tags : Adrienne Rich Quotes , Voice Quotes , Together Quotes

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.

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Tags : Adrienne Rich Quotes , Mind Quotes , Trying Quotes

My heart is moved by all I cannot save: so much has been destroyed I have to cast my lot with those who age after age, perversely, with no extraordinary power, reconstitute the world.

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Tags : Adrienne Rich Quotes , Heart Quotes , Age Quotes

...you look at me like an emergency

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Tags : Adrienne Rich Quotes , Looks Quotes , Emergencies Quotes

You must write, and read, as if your life depended on it.

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Tags : Adrienne Rich Quotes , Writing Quotes

No one ever told us we had to study our lives,make of our lives a study, as if learning natural historyor music, that we should beginwith the simple exercises firstand slowly go on tryingthe hard ones, practicing till strengthand accuracy became one with the daringto leap into transcendence, take the chance of breaking down in the wild arpeggioor faulting the full sentence of the fugue.

6 years ago

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Tags : Adrienne Rich Quotes , Exercise Quotes , Simple Quotes

Increasingly I think of poetry as a theatre of voices, not as coming from a single "I" or from any one position. I want to imagine voices different from my own.

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Tags : Adrienne Rich Quotes , Thinking Quotes , Voice Quotes

When my dreams showed signs of becoming politically correct no unruly images escaping beyond borders ... then I began to wonder

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Tags : Adrienne Rich Quotes , Dream Quotes , Escaping Quotes

Reality, the oppressor's tongue.

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Tags : Adrienne Rich Quotes , Reality Quotes , Poetry Quotes

I don’t think we can separate art from overall human dignity and hope.

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Tags : Adrienne Rich Quotes , Art Quotes , Thinking Quotes

There is no simple formula for the relationship of art to justice...In the end, I don’t think we can separate art from overall human dignity and hope. My concern for my country is inextricable from my concerns as an artist.

6 years ago

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Tags : Adrienne Rich Quotes , Country Quotes , Art Quotes