Woman as Poet: Possibilities
The life and writing of Rich are testaments to and challenges against the hegemonies of gender, marriage, sexuality, and human agency. She lived many lives in her one life, a fact common for women trapped in the expectations of gender that often create burdens that are nearly impossible to carry.
Her early life included marriage and three sons, and then she lived a much different life after separating from her husband, a life often characterized by a sort of radical feminism that celebrated her lesbianism. Her life as a poet/writer paralleled this personal transformation, with Rich acknowledging that her early success as a poet was built on her embracing modernist traditions, leading to her "Aunt Jennifer's Tigers" being both, according to her, a rejection (somewhat unconsciously) and model of those traditions. The poet Rich, however, became a radical as well, resulting in canon czars such as Harold Bloom marginalizing Rich as merely political—missing entirely Rich's powerful argument that political is all that poetry and a poet can be: "I take it that poetry—if it is poetry—is liberatory at its core" (Arts of the Possible, p. 116).
Rich's poetry and her critical work on Dickinson were central parts of my teaching during my nearly two decades as an ELA high school teacher. In fact, one of the most important and influential units I eventually included in the quarter we explored poetry included Rich's work paired with the poetry of Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton. Along with these poets, we viewed the film Pleasantville, framing the lives and poetry of Rich (1929-2012), Plath (1932-1963), and Sexton (1928-1974) against the Betty Parker (Joan Allen) character in the film, the TV mother trapped in the norms of 1950s American.
This unit asked students to consider the suicides of Plath and Sexton against the life and poetic transformations of Rich; we also discussed how the film portrayed Betty Parker, both as a model of the norms of 1950s America and the real person trapped under her make up and the oppressive roles of wife and mother (dramatizing the poetry of Rich's "Aunt Jennifer's Tigers": "The massive weight of Uncle's wedding band/ Sits heavily upon Aunt Jennifer's hand").
And for the words Rich brought to my classroom and my life, I am forever in her debt. She validated things I had dared to think but feared to speak. She reminds me daily of the humility that should be at my core, a paradoxical radical humility, a commitment to human dignity and agency that are both threatened by the mere fact of my being a man in a world and society that allows the norm of manhood to oppress and silence.
It is deeply sad to lose Adrienne Rich, and profoundly uplifting to know all that remains forever from her words and her life:
"The possibilities that exist between two people, or among a group of people, are a kind of alchemy. They are the most interesting thing in life. The liar is someone who keeps losing sight of these possibilities....
"It isn't that to have an honorable relationship with you, I have to understand everything, or tell you everything at once, or that I can know, beforehand, everything I need to tell you. It means that most of the time I am eager, longing for the possibility of telling you. That these possibilities may seem frightening, but not destructive, to me. That I feel strong enough to hear your tentative and groping words. That we both know we are trying, all the time, to extend the possibilities of truth between us.
"The possibility of life between us." (Arts of the Possible, pp. 39-40)
It cannot be coincidence that just a few days ago I sat in my office talking with one of my students; I pulled four books of Rich's from the shelf and recommended her to the student.This morning that student walked into my office with the New York Times article on the passing of Rich.
No, this could not be a coincidence, and yes, it must be the bittersweet symmetry of the universe that reminded me during my moments of sadness of the possibilities.
Recommended
Adrienne Rich @ Poetry Foundation
Anne Sexton: A Biography, Diane Wood Middlebrook
Anne Sexton @ Poetry Foundation
Sylvia Plath: A Biography, Linda Wagner-Martin
Sylvia Plath @ Poetry Foundation
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"upon hearing adrienne rich speak and read her poetry"
P. L. Thomas, 2003
i cannot shake the rush
of my own grandmother—
hair cropped short—
rush over me whenever
i see adrienne rich—
this time—in person—
i felt the hunger to cry
as i watched her—
cane in hand—shuffle on stage
like but not my grandmother—
my chest and eyes welled
again and again from her words—
speaking about teaching
the frailty of teaching
in America—America—
because she knows—
if “knows” means “tastes in the air”
if “knows” means “feels with her blood”—
because she knows
what no one can teach
this mother of us teachers
who lives that which cannot be taught—
the doubling over in pain
from other people’s suffering
that is surely not of this America—
and if i told her
“adrienne, my lives have split
me into pieces, pieces”
she might cry right there
her eyes welled as mine
because it is that knowing
that makes us cry
at the slightest suffering
of any anyone who hurts
and struggles against this whip
called “living”
