Blog #5

Adrienne Rich

 

 

"In order to live a fully human life we require not only control of our bodies (though control is a prerequisite); we must touch the unity and resonance of our physicality, our bond with the natural order, the corporeal grounds of our intelligence." - Adrienne Rich

 

"The worker can unionize, go out on strike; mothers are divided from each other in homes, tied to their children by compassionate bonds; our wildcat strikes have most often taken the form of physical or mental breakdown." - Adrienne Rich

 

When, I was thinking about what to do for my last blog, I came across Adrienne Rich. I really did not remember a lot about her so, I started to do some research on her.  I came across these two quotes that fit our class perfectly. 

 

Adrienne Rich was home schooled until she started fourth grade by her parents.  She came from a middle class family.  The exact same year as she graduated from college her book of poems came out to the public.  A few years later, she began to take a different approach.  In the 1960 she began to write more politically and about feminism.  By the end of her career in writing she published things in a few different aspects.  These aspects were, many essays on poetry, feminism, motherhood, and lesbianism.

 

As we can tell Adrienne Rich's main focus, most of her piece could go back individuality and how one must stay true to themselves.  My favorite

 

Power, by Adrienne Rich
Living in the earth-deposit is 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
for living on this earth in the winters of this climate

Today I was reading about Marie Curie:
she must have known she suffered from radiation sickness
her body bombarded for years by the element
she had purified
It seems she denied to the end
the source of the cataracts on her eyes
the cracked and suppurating skin of her finger-ends
till she could no longer hold a test-tube or a pencil

She died a famous woman denying
her wounds
denying
her wounds came from the same source as her power 

 

This poem made me gain incite on her writing.  At first, I thought it was kind of boring.  But, this poem made me realise the importance in her writing.  This poem was about the Nobel Prize-winning scientist, Marie Curie.  It is cool because Adrienne Rich and Marie Curie are two fascinating women and put their work together.