Adrienne Rich Quotes


... people are growing up in the slack flicker of a pale light which lacks the concentrated burn of a candle flame or oil wick or the bulb of a gooseneck desk lamp: a pale, wavering, oblong shimmer, emitting incessant noise, which is to real knowledge or discourse what the manic or weepy protestations of a drunk are to responsible speech. Drunks do have a way of holding an audience, though, and so does the shimmery ill-focused oblong screen.


Citations

Rich, Adrienne. Arts of the Possible: Essays and Conversations. W. W. Norton & Company, 2001, p. 149.

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Adrienne Rich
Adrienne Rich
  • Born: May 16, 1929
  • Died: March 27, 2012
  • Nationality: American
  • Profession: Poet, Non-fiction Writer, Essayist

Adrienne Cecile Rich was an American poet, essayist and feminist. She was called "one of the most widely read and influential poets of the second half of the 20th century", and was credited with bringing "the oppression of women and lesbians to the forefront of poetic discourse." Rich criticized rigid forms of feminist identities, and valorized what she coined the "lesbian continuum," which is a female continuum of solidarity and creativity that impacts and fills women's lives.