Poetry is above all a concentration of the power of language, which is the power of our ultimate relationship to everything in the universe.
Interpretation
Poetry distills language to express our deep connection with the universe.
Adrienne Rich highlights how poetry serves as a profound form of language that enables us to articulate and explore our ultimate relationships with the world around us. It emphasizes the significance of language as a tool for understanding and connecting with the complexities of existence.
In practice
During a poetry reading event to emphasize the importance of poetic expression.
My children cause me the most exquisite suffering of which I have any experience. It is the suffering of ambivalence: the murderous alternation between bitter resentment and raw-edged nerves, and blissful gratification and tenderness. Sometimes I seem to myself, in my feelings toward these tiny guiltless beings, a monster of selfishness and intolerance.
The word revolution itself has become not only a dead relic of Leftism, but a key to the deadendedness of male politics: the revolution of a wheel which returns in the end to the same place; the revolving door of a politics which has liberated women only to use them, and only within the limits of male tolerance.
A president cannot meaningfully honor certain token artists while the people at large are so dishonored.'β
There is no 'the truth','a truth' - truth is not one thing, or even a system. It is an increasing complexity. the pattern of the carpet is a surface. When we look closely, or when we become weavers, we learn of the tiny multiple threads unseen in the overall pattern, the knots on the underside of the carpet
It is the suffering of ambivalence: the murderous alternation between bitter resentment and raw-edged nerves, and blissful gratification and tenderness
It's as if, in the mother's eyes, her smile, her stroking touch, the child first reads the message:'You are there!'
There's no getting around it: Writing is hard, while working with young performers is nearly always a joy.
I am a poet who composes what life proses, and who proses what life composes.
And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting...
Almost 70 years have gone by, and I've still got that feeling when I write... Writing, for me, is still it. It has always been the basis of everything I do. I'm a writer who performs, not a performer who writes. I love the act of writing. It's still a thrill for me.
Having a soul, they say, is like taking sadness and turning it into something beautiful.
I never approved of talkies. Silent movies were well on their way to developing an entirely new art form. It was not just pantomine, but something wonderfully expressive.
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