A Human Eye Quotes

“If you are curious and open to the life around you, if you are disturbed as to how, by, and against whom wealth and political power is held and used, if you sense there must be good reasons for your unease, if your curiosity and openness drive you toward wanting to act with others, to "do something," you have much in common with the writers of the three essays in Manifesto.”
― Adrienne Rich, A Human Eye: Essays on Art in Society, 1997-2008

“My verse works.' In two senses: as participant in political struggle, and at the personal, visceral level where it's received and its witness acknowledged. These are two responses to the question of poetry and commitment, which I take as complementary, not in opposition.”
― Adrienne Rich, A Human Eye: Essays on Art in Society, 1997-2008

“What do I mean by commitment? I'll flash back to 1821: Shelley's claim, in "The Defence of Poetry", that "poets are the unacknowledged legislaters of the world". Piously overquoted, mostly out of context, it's taken to suggest that simply by virtue of compossing verse, poets exert some exemplary moral power - in a vaue, unthreatening way. (...) He did NOT say, "Poets are the unacknowledged interior decorators of the world".”
― Adrienne Rich, A Human Eye: Essays on Art in Society, 1997-2008