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167th out of 975 books
—
1,010 voters
A Wild Patience Has Taken Me This Far: Poems, 1978-1981
“We are in the presence here of a major American poet whose voice at mid-century in her own life is increasingly marked by moral passion.”—New York Times Book Review
Paperback, 72 pages
Published
July 17th 1993
by W. W. Norton & Company
(first published 1981)
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Not long ago, Adrienne Rich died of rheumatoid arthritis. Her death is a loss to the world and also to me. I never met her; it took me a long time to understand her poetry, so it seems somewhat strange that I would miss her, but I do.
In 1976, Rich wrote "Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution". I am not sure when I first encountered this book, but some time before my first pregnancy in 1982. With her writings about motherhood, Rich actually made me think about childbirth and how...more
In 1976, Rich wrote "Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution". I am not sure when I first encountered this book, but some time before my first pregnancy in 1982. With her writings about motherhood, Rich actually made me think about childbirth and how...more
I decided to pick this up again tonight after an evening of upheaval in my domestic feng shui and internal anxiety and melancholia brought on by reading an update this morning on one of the queer girl teens who was shot in texas over Pride weekend.
Adrienne Rich was by far the right choice for such a mood. I have trouble with her sometimes, wanting to feel as dedicated to her poetry as I do to Judy Grahn's, but struggling with finding it kind of distant. However her poems incorporate both a vulne...more
Adrienne Rich was by far the right choice for such a mood. I have trouble with her sometimes, wanting to feel as dedicated to her poetry as I do to Judy Grahn's, but struggling with finding it kind of distant. However her poems incorporate both a vulne...more
Feb 05, 2008
Kate
rated it
4 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
anyone who can handle yet another strong female voice in a whispering world
Shelves:
poetry
I read it cover to cover in about an hour. she is honest without being mean, something i strive for in life in general as well as in my written accounts of the world.
For Memory
Old words: trust fidelity
Nothing new yet to take their place.
I take leaves, clear the lawn, October grass
painfully green beneath the gold
and in this silent labor thoughts of you
start up
I hear your voice: disloyalty betrayal
stinging the wires
I stuff the old leaves into sacks
and still they fall and still
I see my work undone
One shivering rainswept afternoon
and the whole job to be done over
I can't know what you know
unless you tell me
there are gashes in our understandings
of this world
We cam...more
Old words: trust fidelity
Nothing new yet to take their place.
I take leaves, clear the lawn, October grass
painfully green beneath the gold
and in this silent labor thoughts of you
start up
I hear your voice: disloyalty betrayal
stinging the wires
I stuff the old leaves into sacks
and still they fall and still
I see my work undone
One shivering rainswept afternoon
and the whole job to be done over
I can't know what you know
unless you tell me
there are gashes in our understandings
of this world
We cam...more
Here Rich continued her explorations, into the uncharted territories. With the best possible title. I was lucky to read these as they came out.
there is one poem, i can't remember the name, but she says
"I should miss you more than any other
living creature on this earth...
Yes, our work is one,
we are one in aim and sympathy
and we should be together...
beautiful. This poetry collection, I have to say, I prefer to the Dream of a common language.
"I should miss you more than any other
living creature on this earth...
Yes, our work is one,
we are one in aim and sympathy
and we should be together...
beautiful. This poetry collection, I have to say, I prefer to the Dream of a common language.
One of the best gifts I ever received. Incredibly powerful.
read
I found the vivid imagery often obscured by self-referential politics.
Pick it up for the poem Integrity - from which the title comes.
another of my all time favorites.
if you like poetry, and want to try something unique and still understand the power and presence of voice this is where to start.
if you like poetry, and want to try something unique and still understand the power and presence of voice this is where to start.
The contradiction of wild and patience describes this book so well... beautiful, urgent, soft, ancient, contemporary poetry.
Uplifting, amazing, but the aura of the 'now' has since faded. 1978-1981 seem to be always outside of my grasp.
Doesn't the name say it all?
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Adrienne Rich (b. 1929). Born to a middle-class family, Rich was educated by her parents until she entered public school in the fourth grade. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Radcliffe College in 1951, the same year her first book of poems, A Change of World, appeared. That volume, chosen by W. H. Auden for the Yale Series of Younger Poets Award, and her next, The Diamond Cutters and Other Poems...more
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“What rivets me to history is seeing / acts of survival turned / to rituals of self-hatred. This / is colonization. Unborn sisters, / look back on us in mercy where we failed ourselves, / see us not one-dimensional but with / the past as your steadying and corrective lens.”
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