Long ago, I was caught by an image in one of Adrienne Rich’s poems. I want to share some of her poems with you, but it’s tricky because they’re still under copyright. Therefore, today, I’m going to cheat by showing you a few lines of a poem and then providing a link. I really do hope you will click through and read the full poems. They are each short, and they are each intriguing and compelling.
Here’s the first stanza of a poem called “Song”. This is the poem that caught me when I was in high school or college. I think this might have been the only poem by Adrienne Rich in the literature book; if not, it was definitely the one I remembered for decades and thought of today.
I’m realizing that Adrienne Rich is one of the poets who can make me appreciate unrhymed verse. A lot of the time, unrhymed verse strikes me as just lazy — the poet not wanting to bother with rhyme, structure, or much of anything, really. I realize this may not be quite fair. But my point is, Rich’s poems don’t strike me that way at all. She’s using language beautifully. One of the things she’s using is repetition. Another, of course, is metaphor. Here are three short poems, one stanza of each plus a link.
“Song”
You’re wondering if I’m lonely:
OK then, yes, I’m lonely
as a plane rides lonely and level
on its radio beam, aiming
across the Rockies
for the blue-strung aisles
of an airfield on the ocean.
Click here to read the whole thing — it’s four stanzas — the last stanza is why I love this poem. Though this first stanza is pretty great too.
***
I went looking for other poems of Rich’s. Here’s one of the many I’ve never seen before.
“Storm Warnings”
The glass has been falling all the afternoon,
And knowing better than the instrument
What winds are walking overhead, what zone
Of grey unrest is moving across the land,
I leave the book upon a pillowed chair
And walk from window to closed window, watching
Boughs strain against the sky
Click here to read the whole thing — again, it’s just four stanzas.
***
One more. This poem is why I used the word “intriguing” to describe her work. Still unrhymed, but this is not exactly free verse, and by “not exactly,” I mean not at all. The structure of this poem is very neat and you will not be able to appreciate it unless you click through and read the whole thing.
“Final Notations“
it will not be simple, it will not be long
it will take little time, it will take all your thought
it will take all your heart, it will take all your breath
it will be short, it will not be simple
Click here to read the whole thing. Once more, just four stanzas. This is an amazing poem, though I’m not sure what it’s about. Life? Death? Love? God? All of the above? I’m glad I decided to spend an hour reading Adrienne Rich’s poetry and picking out a few for this post; otherwise I might never have happened across any of her poems other than the few I happened to remember from long-past classes.
Should you happen to be interested, here is a link to a collection of Adrienne Rich’s poetry.
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Oh, these are breathtaking. The last one is so compelling and yet I have no idea what it’s about either.
(Is anyone else imagining there’s a boat on the border of the winter country waiting to be turned into firewood?)