Adrienne Rich essay

cocopopsxx

Hey, I have an Adrienne Rich essay due the week we're back to school and I have almost everything done except for the starting bit of my introduction. I really want to start off with a quotation but I can't find an apt. quote that really encapsulates the work of Rich- like some definition of poetry or just anything. Does anyone know of a quote that I could use? Any help will be appreciated! Thanks in advance.

Canard

I dont have English exam papers but I remember an essay title on her having a quote in it by her herself - it was something about poetry speaking to people. That might be useful, just look through your papers, should be there

cocopopsxx

Thank you Patchy! This is the quote right,- "The desire to be heard,- that is the impulse behind writing poems, for me"? This is a good one, I'll use it! Thanks. x

Also, could you please tell me if the quote "Poetry is the language in which man explores his own amazement" apt as well, since I want to have a few different quotes at hand??

Canard

No problem! And yep thats it

Did Rich say that? If not I'd be wary of using it, seeing as she was so sexist, just seems a bit off to me :P

cocopopsxx

Patchy~ wrote: »

No problem! And yep thats it

Did Rich say that? If not I'd be wary of using it, seeing as she was so sexist, just seems a bit off to me :P

No, Rich didn't say that.
Haha true, I won't use this one so. Thanks again.

gruffler91

The one I used to use for my rich essays was a quote from Salman Rushdie:

“A poet's work . . . to name the unnamable, to point at frauds, to take sides, start arguments, shape the world and stop it from going to sleep.”
― Salman Rushdie

You could then just say that Rich achieves all of this and more through her use of x, y and z.

bobjimmy

Heres my rich essay. Anyone care to give it a mark?

Adrienne Rich was the poet on the Leaving Cert course whose work most appealed to me. There were several reasons for this. For me the most important aspect of Rich’s work was her depiction of relationships in a way that seemed very real. Her poems take account of the fact that love so often goes wrong yet also offer hope that the anguish of a failed relationship can be overcome. I also enjoyed the feminist aspect of Rich’s work. Her depiction of women being dominated by the men in their lives is as relevant today as it was when Rich first presented it. I liked the fact that unlike many feminists Rich doesn’t seem to hate men. In fact she suggests the possibility that the conflict between male and female can be somehow healed. Rich’s language also appealed to me. I enjoyed her use of images, many of which seemed particularly memorable and vivid.

In my opinion, too many poems and pop songs present an idealistic or overly romantic view of love. Rich, however, is having none of this. She is fully aware that all too often relationships don’t work out the way we want them to. As she puts it in ‘From a Survivor’, every couple believes they are ‘special’: ‘Like everybody else we thought of ourselves as special’. Yet no couple is immune to the ‘failures of the race’. Every relationship will encounter turbulence and difficulty. In ‘The Roofwalker’, for instance, the speaker invests a great deal of time and energy in a relationship only to realise that she does not really belong with this man. The life they have created together is not for her. ‘Was it worth while’, she asks, ‘to lay - / with infinite exertion - / a roof I can’t live under?’ This tragic waste of time and effort in the cause of a failed relationship was something I could really relate to.

I could also identify somewhat with the situation depicted in ‘Living in Sin’. This poem also shows us a woman whose relationship has not worked out as she expected. This young woman believed she would have a perfect life with her lover in their studio apartment. She imagined there would be ‘no dust upon the furniture of love’. However, life in the studio has turned out to be quite miserable. The apartment is dirty and unpleasant: ‘Half heresy, to wish the taps less vocal, / the panes relieved of grime’. Her lover appears distant and uncaring, and hardly speaks to her each morning before going ‘out for cigarettes’. It is unsurprising, therefore, that this young woman is filled with mental anguish, is haunted by the ‘minor demons’ of sorrow and disappointment.

Yet Rich’s most moving account of a relationship in crisis is surely ‘Trying to Talk with a Man’. What impresses me most about this poem is the way it captures just how difficult it can be to communicate at the end of a relationship, with Rich brilliantly describing the lovers ‘surrounded by a silence…that came with us / and is familiar’. This silence expands like a cancer at the heart of the couple’s relationship, forcing them to ‘give up’ the things they shared, such as ‘the language of love letters’ and ‘afternoons on the riverbank / pretending to be children’.

A belief in women’s liberation became central to Rich’s poetry as she developed as a writer. Yet we see this focus on women’s rights even in an early poem like ‘Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers’ which presents marriage as something that weighs women down and controls them: ‘The massive weight of Uncle’s wedding band / Sits heavily on Aunt Jennifer’s hand’. The aunt is ‘mastered’ by the ‘ordeal’ of marriage. ‘Living in Sin’, too, focuses on the inequality between men and women that exists at the heart of so many relationships. The young woman in this poem seems to do all the housework while her boyfriend lounges about the place uselessly. Though he is allegedly a musician of some kind he appears to do little artistic work, only sounding a ‘dozen notes upon the keyboard’ before heading ‘out for cigarettes’. ‘From a Survivor’ also focuses on this inequality with the speaker declaring that her husband’s body was the ‘body of a God’ and that he had ‘power over my life’.

Yet Rich’s poetry also offers a lot of hope. In both ‘The Roofwalker’ and ‘From a Survivor’ she shows that it is possible for a woman to reverse bad decisions and escape a relationship or way of life that is unsuitable to her. In ‘From a Survivor’ the speaker has ‘made the leap’ and escaped her failing marriage. Now her husband is no longer like a god to her and her new life is like a ‘succession of brief, amazing moments’. ‘The Roofwalker’ also deals with this possibility of escape and shows the speaker desiring to leave behind a life she ‘didn’t choose’. Yet this poem stresses how unnerving and intimidating it can be to leave a stable relationship behind. To do so is to be exposed and vulnerable as ‘a naked man / fleeing across the roofs’. I thought this was one of Rich’s finest images, brilliantly capturing feelings of vulnerability and isolation in an image that is both moving and amusing.

Though Rich is a feminist she in no way hates men and she displays real feeling toward her husband in ‘From a Survivor’ where she claims that his body is ‘still vivid’ to her and in ‘Trying to Talk with a Man’ where she dwells tenderly on memories of their relationship. In a poem like ‘Power’ Rich expresses her optimism that women can gain power over their own lives, that they can escape from ‘under the thumb’ of the men who oppress them. As the poem suggests, however, this power can only be gained at a price.

While Rich’s philosophy is important, it is her use of images, in my opinion, that makes her truly great as a poet. While her poetry is studded with wonderful images there is only space to quote a few here. There is a fine metaphor in ‘Living in Sin’ where a beetle is described as an ‘envoy from the moldings’. There is also an excellent metaphor in this poem where the morning is compared to a ‘relentless milkman coming up the stairs’. I found both of these images amusing but they also filled me with a certain unease and discomfort. There is also a startling set of metaphors in ‘The Roofwalker’ that really appealed to me, where builders on a roof are described as sailors on a deck; the sky is depicted as a ‘torn sail’, and the night as a black wave about to descend.

To sum up, then, my admiration for Rich’s poetry stems from the fact that she is not afraid to confront unpleasant realities such as the heartbreak that accompanies the failure of a relationship and the oppression of women. Yet she is not a poet who is content to simply dwell on the negative. Her work also offers hope, hope that the anguish of failed love can be overcome, that women can escape the traps in life they set for themselves and that they can gain power all of their own.

bobjimmy

Anyone want to mark it...!! Please

Canard

Thats for your teacher to do, none of us know how to :P

cocopopsxx

gruffler91 wrote: »

The one I used to use for my rich essays was a quote from Salman Rushdie:

“A poet's work . . . to name the unnamable, to point at frauds, to take sides, start arguments, shape the world and stop it from going to sleep.”
― Salman Rushdie

You could then just say that Rich achieves all of this and more through her use of x, y and z.

Thank you.


@Bobjimmy:- why don't you ask your teacher to correct it for you? I'm sure she'll do it!

Stalin and rugby

cocopopsxx wrote: »

Thank you.


@Bobjimmy:- why don't you ask your teacher to correct it for you? I'm sure she'll do it!

Oh I'm sure his teacher will correct it for him.... and have it back in about 3 weeks. English teachers take forever to correct things and then they pull out the classic "I had a lot of work to get through"

Canard

Mine gets our work back the next day, theyre not all bad :L

JonnyMcNamee

Stalin and rugby wrote: »

cocopopsxx wrote: »

Thank you.


@Bobjimmy:- why don't you ask your teacher to correct it for you? I'm sure she'll do it!

Oh I'm sure his teacher will correct it for him.... and have it back in about 3 weeks. English teachers take forever to correct things and then they pull out the classic "I had a lot of work to get through"

my teacher has had three essays of mine for six weeks now! Tis quite ridiculous!

chomps_x

bobjimmy wrote: »

Heres my rich essay. Anyone care to give it a mark?

Adrienne Rich was the poet on the Leaving Cert course whose work most appealed to me. There were several reasons for this. For me the most important aspect of Rich’s work was her depiction of relationships in a way that seemed very real. Her poems take account of the fact that love so often goes wrong yet also offer hope that the anguish of a failed relationship can be overcome. I also enjoyed the feminist aspect of Rich’s work. Her depiction of women being dominated by the men in their lives is as relevant today as it was when Rich first presented it. I liked the fact that unlike many feminists Rich doesn’t seem to hate men. In fact she suggests the possibility that the conflict between male and female can be somehow healed. Rich’s language also appealed to me. I enjoyed her use of images, many of which seemed particularly memorable and vivid.

In my opinion, too many poems and pop songs present an idealistic or overly romantic view of love. Rich, however, is having none of this. She is fully aware that all too often relationships don’t work out the way we want them to. As she puts it in ‘From a Survivor’, every couple believes they are ‘special’: ‘Like everybody else we thought of ourselves as special’. Yet no couple is immune to the ‘failures of the race’. Every relationship will encounter turbulence and difficulty. In ‘The Roofwalker’, for instance, the speaker invests a great deal of time and energy in a relationship only to realise that she does not really belong with this man. The life they have created together is not for her. ‘Was it worth while’, she asks, ‘to lay - / with infinite exertion - / a roof I can’t live under?’ This tragic waste of time and effort in the cause of a failed relationship was something I could really relate to.

I could also identify somewhat with the situation depicted in ‘Living in Sin’. This poem also shows us a woman whose relationship has not worked out as she expected. This young woman believed she would have a perfect life with her lover in their studio apartment. She imagined there would be ‘no dust upon the furniture of love’. However, life in the studio has turned out to be quite miserable. The apartment is dirty and unpleasant: ‘Half heresy, to wish the taps less vocal, / the panes relieved of grime’. Her lover appears distant and uncaring, and hardly speaks to her each morning before going ‘out for cigarettes’. It is unsurprising, therefore, that this young woman is filled with mental anguish, is haunted by the ‘minor demons’ of sorrow and disappointment.

Yet Rich’s most moving account of a relationship in crisis is surely ‘Trying to Talk with a Man’. What impresses me most about this poem is the way it captures just how difficult it can be to communicate at the end of a relationship, with Rich brilliantly describing the lovers ‘surrounded by a silence…that came with us / and is familiar’. This silence expands like a cancer at the heart of the couple’s relationship, forcing them to ‘give up’ the things they shared, such as ‘the language of love letters’ and ‘afternoons on the riverbank / pretending to be children’.

A belief in women’s liberation became central to Rich’s poetry as she developed as a writer. Yet we see this focus on women’s rights even in an early poem like ‘Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers’ which presents marriage as something that weighs women down and controls them: ‘The massive weight of Uncle’s wedding band / Sits heavily on Aunt Jennifer’s hand’. The aunt is ‘mastered’ by the ‘ordeal’ of marriage. ‘Living in Sin’, too, focuses on the inequality between men and women that exists at the heart of so many relationships. The young woman in this poem seems to do all the housework while her boyfriend lounges about the place uselessly. Though he is allegedly a musician of some kind he appears to do little artistic work, only sounding a ‘dozen notes upon the keyboard’ before heading ‘out for cigarettes’. ‘From a Survivor’ also focuses on this inequality with the speaker declaring that her husband’s body was the ‘body of a God’ and that he had ‘power over my life’.

Yet Rich’s poetry also offers a lot of hope. In both ‘The Roofwalker’ and ‘From a Survivor’ she shows that it is possible for a woman to reverse bad decisions and escape a relationship or way of life that is unsuitable to her. In ‘From a Survivor’ the speaker has ‘made the leap’ and escaped her failing marriage. Now her husband is no longer like a god to her and her new life is like a ‘succession of brief, amazing moments’. ‘The Roofwalker’ also deals with this possibility of escape and shows the speaker desiring to leave behind a life she ‘didn’t choose’. Yet this poem stresses how unnerving and intimidating it can be to leave a stable relationship behind. To do so is to be exposed and vulnerable as ‘a naked man / fleeing across the roofs’. I thought this was one of Rich’s finest images, brilliantly capturing feelings of vulnerability and isolation in an image that is both moving and amusing.

Though Rich is a feminist she in no way hates men and she displays real feeling toward her husband in ‘From a Survivor’ where she claims that his body is ‘still vivid’ to her and in ‘Trying to Talk with a Man’ where she dwells tenderly on memories of their relationship. In a poem like ‘Power’ Rich expresses her optimism that women can gain power over their own lives, that they can escape from ‘under the thumb’ of the men who oppress them. As the poem suggests, however, this power can only be gained at a price.

While Rich’s philosophy is important, it is her use of images, in my opinion, that makes her truly great as a poet. While her poetry is studded with wonderful images there is only space to quote a few here. There is a fine metaphor in ‘Living in Sin’ where a beetle is described as an ‘envoy from the moldings’. There is also an excellent metaphor in this poem where the morning is compared to a ‘relentless milkman coming up the stairs’. I found both of these images amusing but they also filled me with a certain unease and discomfort. There is also a startling set of metaphors in ‘The Roofwalker’ that really appealed to me, where builders on a roof are described as sailors on a deck; the sky is depicted as a ‘torn sail’, and the night as a black wave about to descend.

To sum up, then, my admiration for Rich’s poetry stems from the fact that she is not afraid to confront unpleasant realities such as the heartbreak that accompanies the failure of a relationship and the oppression of women. Yet she is not a poet who is content to simply dwell on the negative. Her work also offers hope, hope that the anguish of failed love can be overcome, that women can escape the traps in life they set for themselves and that they can gain power all of their own.

Dude that' not your essay. That's on the forum publications website...
http://www.forum-publications.com/sampleanswers2012.htm

Mayo_Boy

chomps_x wrote: »

Dude that' not your essay. That's on the forum publications website...
http://www.forum-publications.com/sampleanswers2012.htm

BOOOM! busted

Stalin and rugby

Hayezer

Wait do ye start your essays with quotes :O? Also, do you think we should bring in any outside details about the poet that aren't directly in the poems? Like information in the little summary of the poet's life at the start of their section in the book?

Cruel Sun

I've only got Rich and Plath prepared, I'm considering doing Heaney. Does anyone know where I could get a sample essay?