I have been devouring Adrienne Rich’s works by the book-full for the past month – since uni started and I could freely borrow what I wanted from the beautiful, calming, liberatingly massive collection of books they’ve got. And this isnt even the tip of the ice-berg yet.
I have noted a bunch of authors, women, that Adrienne has referred or referenced to in her works. I intend on reading their complete works as well. Once I’m done with Adrienne of course. (I prefer saying Adrienne to Rich because her work is simply so personal, so much her own that to distance her from it by using simply her last name would be…meh)
At the moment I’ve checked out two of her books, Of Woman Born – Motherhood as Experience and Institution, and On Lies, Secrets, and Silence. In contemplating her work, any of her work be it poetry or prose, I have found a much needed affirmation, a refreshingly female perspective on what it means to be female. I’m sure all of this sounds like “feminist tripe” but having struggled with personal identity for as long as I can remember, finding a voice that makes so much sense provides immeasurable relief and strength.
I cant claim to understand what pains Adrienne Rich has been through, how much she has suffered to come to this point of realization..or several realizations..to then voice them, live by them. I cannot even begin to imagine. But what amazes me is her ability to identify all the major issues surrounding the collective female experience (not just her own) within a (still) patriarchal society. What amazes me more is her ability to understand and come to terms with these issues, to then present them in a way that may be understood by others. What it comes down to, really, is the strength to write the complete, unadulterated, unfiltered, stark truth. And to then learn to deal with it.
I hope to meet her some day, attend a reading or some other event and tell her how her words have acted as glue between fragments of myself that I had lost, was losing or would have lost. I wonder how lost still I would be had I never chanced upon The Fact of a Doorframe at my college library, and found in it a voice – a female voice – of strength, purpose, sincerity and disillusionment. I am tempted to say I wish I had found this voice sooner, but I might not have been ready then. I look at my sleeping sister and despite the tumult of emotions I have felt since her birth two years ago, I want to be this voice for her – this voice that refuses self-destruction, powerlessness and objectification. I want to be this voice. I want to be this person.
It was a pleasure reading your post. The poem “Women” and now this entry has really made it absolutely necessary for me to read Adrienne Rich’s works… This is exactly what I felt when I read “Women”: ‘What it comes down to, really, is the strength to write the complete, unadulterated, unfiltered, stark truth. And to then learn to deal with it.’ The force with which the truth of the lines of “Women” hit me was tremendous and there was pain in them but also the hope that comes with the realization. Like you said, it’s the learning to deal with it part.