RaveThe San Francisco ChronicleWith essays ranging from motherhood and daughterhood to her interfaith background to her reasons for declining a National Medal for the Arts from the White House (famously saying: \'Art means nothing if it simply decorates the dinner table of the power that holds it hostage\')—this volume shows us a woman in full command of her intellect and art. Rich, who died at 82 in Santa Cruz in 2012, is a voice that is more relevant than ever. In nearly every chapter, she’s saying something directly applicable to the #MeToo movement and the forthcoming Supreme Court fight over women’s bodies ... While layering the personal and political, Rich often pauses on the power of poetry to help us along the journey. She writes eloquently about the process of letting herself be surprised by her work later in life, and how poems are like dreams: \'in them you put what you don’t know you know.\' Rich is deeply interested in poetic lineage, tracing, reimagining and defending female authors who have been watered down or misrepresented ... This book reminds us of the privilege and charge of being haunted by such women, especially by Adrienne Rich herself. Her work and life demonstrate the magnitude of human potential and will, and how a woman can understand the restrictions that hold her captive, while setting herself and others free.
