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Adrienne Rich

b: Baltimore, Maryland, USA, May 16, 1929

Adrienne Cecile Rich is an American poet, essayist and feminist. She has been called "one of the most widely read and influential poets of the second half of the 20th century."

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All the old knives That have rusted in my back, I drive in yours.

Every journey into the past is complicated by delusions, false memories, false namings of real events.

How we dwelt in two worlds the daughters and the mothers in the kingdom of the sons.

I came to explore the wreck.

I suppose it is pretty funny. Until it happens.

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.

It's exhilarating to be alive in a time of awakening consciousness; it can also be confusing, disorienting, and painful.

Life on the planet is born of woman.

Lying is done with words and also with silence.

Only to have a grief equal to all these tears!

The mind's passion is all for singling out. Obscurity has another tale to tell.

The moment of change is the only poem.

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.

They can rule the world while they can persuade us our pain belongs in some order is death by famine worse than death by suicide, than a life of famine and suicide...?

We who were loved will never unlive that crippling fever.

…and in your halfcracked way you chose silence for entertainment, chose to have it out at last on your own premises