Literary Birthday – 16 May – Adrienne Rich

Adrienne Rich was born on 16 May 1929 and died on 27 March 2012.

Adrienne Rich Quotes

1. To write as if your life depended on it; to write across the chalkboard, putting up there in public the words you have dredged; sieved up in dreams, from behind screen memories, out of silence— words you have dreaded and needed in order to know you exist.
2. The password is a flicker of an eyelash.
3. Poems are like dreams: in them you put what you don’t know you know.
4. There must be those among whom we can sit down and weep and still be counted as warriors.
5. Lying is done with words, and also with silence.
6. Responsibility to yourself means refusing to let others do your thinking, talking, and naming for you; it means learning to respect and use your own brains and instincts; hence, grappling with hard work.
7. You must write, and read, as if your life depended on it.
8. When a woman tells the truth she is creating the possibility for more truth around her.
9. Poetry is the liquid voice that can wear through stone.

Adrienne Rich was an award-winning American poet, essayist, teacher, critic, and feminist. She was a poet of major influence in the late 20th century. She explored topics such as identity, sexuality, and politics in her work. She is the author of Diving Into The Wreck and The Dream of a Common Language. Rich famously declined the National Medal of Arts to protest House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s vote to end funding for the National Endowment for the Arts. Rich taught at numerous universities across the United States, including Stanford and Cornell.

Source for Image: K. Kendall, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Adrienne_Rich_1980.jpg

by Amanda Patterson

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