LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth |
BOOKED Solid |
Reviewed by Rebecca James |
The first time I ever heard of Adrienne Rich was the summer I came out. I was sitting cross-legged in the floor of the first women's bookstore I had ever been in, a small store in Cambridge, Massachusetts where I encountered stacks of women's writing, buttons, posters, stickers, CDs, and in the rear, a whole room full of used books. There I came across a thin paperback with a picture of a woman with penetrating eyes and close-cropped hair on the jacket; inside was some of the most powerful poetry I would ever experience at this revolutionary time in my life.
Last week, I had the privilege of hearing Adrienne Rich speak in person. She spoke at Muhlenburg College in Allentown, Pennsylvania as part of their "Living Writers" seriesalso speaking this semester are David Sedaris, author of Me Talk Pretty One Day, and Ha Jin, author of the prize-winning Waiting. Rich is a product of the 1970s' lesbian-feminist movement. Her prose and poetry deal with issues such as power, gender, sexuality, and political structures. This era and its issuesstill currentfascinate me. I tend to be disappointed or at least surprised when the writing produced in the 70s (read by me in the 90s) is matched with the physical person in the year 2001. The image in my mind is usually based on a thirty year old jacket photograph combined with the youthful anger or enthusiasm displayed in their workalso thirty years old. In this particular instance, someone warned me ahead of time that Rich struggles with severe arthritis and walks with a cane, but I still was not prepared for the small, stooped woman that first appeared on the stage. After a moment, though, I noticed the determination in her slow walk, and the set of her jaw. A chair with a low microphone was prepared for her, but she stood the entire hour at the podium. Her voice, clear and strong, carried throughout the small auditorium. She specifically requested that the lights remain on during the program; she explained that she enjoyed seeing our faces as she read aloud. Her latest book, called Foxjust published this monthis a collection of new poems. Rich read several poems from this book as well as older pieces; there seemed to be a theme to the works she chose to read. Rich prefaced her poems by reminding the audience of the prevalence of issues regarding power and politics in our lives during the past month. Her work has always addressed these concerns, but now, more than ever, she explained that she was thinking about "power and its responsibilities." The first poem she read was from an older collection called Atlas of a Difficult World, but it was sadly relevant to today's political situation. "A patriot is not a weapon," she read. "The shapes of powerlessness and power" are made clearer during times of crises. Rich, born in Baltimore in 1929, has an impressive volume of work that spans more than five decades. She was married with three sons when she became involved with the civil rights movement in the 1950s and 60s. Rich began writing poetry that examined the issues she found in her work with this movement. She recognized her sexuality in the 1970s by ending her marriage and shifting her writing to include her growing interest in lesbian-feminism. Her works of poetry and prose during this period include Diving Into the Wreck and On Lies, Secrets, and Silence. The 1980s and 90s found Rich covering a wide variety of topics that have all, in one way or another, dealt with identity, authority, or control. In her forward to On Lies, Secrets and Silence, Rich makes a statement that could represent her view on her own work, women's writing in general, and politics as a whole. They are all constantly shifting entities and "I would feel sorry if I thought that anyone reading this collection of writings would imagine that I had arrived smoothly from that point to this. Rather, I trust the contradictions and repetitions in this book to speak for themselves. I disagree with myself in this book, and I find in myself both severe and tender feelings toward the women I have been, whose thoughts I find here." If only we could all look back at our world and ourselves and simply reflect on and learn from where we have been. Midway through Rich's hour-long reading, the woman behind me sighed audibly and whispered to herself, "I am never writing again." I smiled but thought, after this, I will never sleep againI only want to write. Rebecca James reads, writes, studies, and resides in Allentown, Pennsylvania. She spends summer months and some off-season weekends in Rehoboth Beach. |
LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth, Vol. 11, No. 14, October 19, 2001. |