National Poetry Month, Adrienne Rich

In Those Years

In those years, people will say, we lost track
of the meaning of the words we, of you
we found ourselves
reduced to I
and the whole thing became
silly, ironic, terrible:
we were trying to live a personal life
we could bear witness to

But the great dark birds of history screamed and plunged
into our personal weather
They were headed somewhere else but their beaks and pinions drove
along the shore, through the rags of fog
where we stood, saying I

1991

Adrienne Rich


At some point during the first half of my sophomore year in college, someone, I believe a professor, introduced me to the poetry of Adrienne Rich. I was writing a lot of poetry at the time and as soon as I read her, I found something I couldn't help but love. I bought one of her collections and read it on the plane back to school after winter break. I even wrote a poem of my own on the back inside cover "somewhere between Portland, OR and Minneapolis, MN."

A few years later, I got to see her in Portland through an event sponsored by Portland Arts & Lectures. This past week, I was saddened to hear of her passing. This is my way of remembering her.

These days, though I write very little poetry (I had once dreamed of pursuing an MFA in Poetry...), it is still something near and dear to the heart of me. I've decided to (hopefully!) post a poem a day during the month of April to celebrate National Poetry Month. It's a big commitment, especially as I only have a few weeks to get my manuscript ready to send off, but I think it will be good for me. Poetry taught me a great deal about myself and about the world and over the past few years, as I've been focused on fiction writing/novels, I haven't been reading as much as I used to. I'm looking forward to pulling out some old favorites and finding some new ones. I probably won't comment on each and every poem/poet that's posted, but for some I won't be able to help myself.

And if you're really lucky, maybe I'll even post an old poem or two of my own...

My first Adrienne Rich book along with a long forgotten ticket stub.