We mourn the loss of Adrienne Rich, radical, lesbian, feminist, poet, and essayist. UPDATED: Since the LA Times obituary neglects to mention her lesbianism, I have been requested to reprint one of Rich’s more powerful and memorable quotes, from the forward to On Lies, Secrets and Silence:
It is … crucial that we understand lesbian/feminism in the deepest, most radical sense: as that love for ourselves and other women, that commitment to the freedom of all of us, which transcends the category of “sexual preference” and the issue of civil rights, to become a politics of asking women’s questions, demanding a world in which the integrity of all women—not a chosen few—shall be honored and validated in every respect of culture.
It seems most appropriate to reprint, then, her poem, “For the Dead.” All of her poems are available here.
For the Dead
I dreamed I called you on the telephone
to say: Be kinder to yourself
but you were sick and would not answerThe waste of my love goes on this way
trying to save you from yourselfI have always wondered about the left-over
energy, the way water goes rushing down a hill
long after the rains have stoppedor the fire you want to go to bed from
but cannot leave, burning-down but not burnt-down
the red coals more extreme, more curious
in their flashing and dying
than you wish they were
sitting long after midnightAdrienne Rich