Tuesday, August 04, 2009

News at Eleven: In [Adrienne] Rich's lines, the emotional stakes

are defined, not danced around. The poem acknowledges the historical matrix into which the women were born and within which they must struggle--most unexpectedly, against one another. As they "scream/across cut glass and majolica" Rich compares them to "Furies cornered from their prey." Moreover, the women are implicated in their own stalemate; locked in battle with one another, they miss out on the larger war. Rich's poem presents a situation rife with anger, a not traditionally "female" emotion, and is, to me, a powerful and moving poem.

from Bookslut: The Kings are Boring: Some Thoughts on Women's Poetry

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