Adrienne Rich: Poet & Roofwalker Extraordinaire

I have just heard that Adrienne Rich has died at the age of 82. I first came across  American poet Adrienne Rich on a school syllabus while tutoring a few years ago. Her poems were revelatory and rebellious and I was instantly hooked. She was the first poet that I was passionate about teaching and such a great addition to the usual traditional line-up of poets (predominantly male, I might add) on the schoolbooks.

I especially admired her for her outspokenness in the restrictive time she was writing. As a woman, declaring herself (and pursuing being) a writer was an incredibly brave thing to do, given that the profession was so male-dominated and female-wary. I also admired the fact that she was fearless as a person in the pursuit of happiness, abandoning all things that kept her tied down, kept her from being her true self, was not afraid of taking 'leaps' to live a full and true life, a life of 'a succession of brief, amazing moments/each one making possible the next.'

Rich's poems lodge in your mind as fiery assaults on patriarchy, gender inequality and society's moulded stereotypical strata. Who can forget the irony of 'The Uncle Speaks in the Drawing Room,' the raw truth on the disillusionment and inequality of relationships in 'Living in Sin' and 'Trying to Talk to a Man', or the wise fortitude of 'From a Survivor,' the ground-breaking seminal feminist riposte 'Diving into the Wreck', the powerful and presidential  inauguration speech material 'Storm Warnings' and indeed, the tigers, those stitched and in spirit, of 'Aunt Jennifer Tigers', or the fearless and gutsy admission of her career choice in 'The Roofwalker'? Her poems pack a punch of truth that lingers long after reading. She is one of those rare poets who writes about things that really matter, who infuses her art with her spirit and uses it as a vehicle not only to express emotion, but to also further the cause she was fighting for, while at the same time, never letting it impinge on her abilities, skills and priorities as a writer.

Denise Pop has this to say about her in 'The Oxford Companion to Women's Writing in the United States'

(© OUP 1995)

'There is no writer of comparable influence and achievement in so many areas of the contemporary women's movement as the poet and theorist Adrienne Rich. Over the years, hers has become one of the most eloquent, provocative voices on the politics of sexuality, race, language, power, and women's culture. There is scarcely an anthology of feminist writings that does not contain her work or specifically engage her ideas...' 

Adrienne Rich is not only one of my favourite poets, but one of my most admired people.  When I think of how to sum up Adrienne Rich, I think of Aunt Jennifer in her poem 'Aunt Jennifer's Tigers,' the woman whose life was blighted with domestic servitude and gender inequality. But still she found time to create, and even after her death, Rich notes that 'the tigers in the panel that she made/will go on prancing, proud and unafraid.' A fitting line to describe Rich and her legacy.

~ Siobhán.

 

Aunt Jennifer's Tigers - Adrienne Rich

Aunt Jennifer's tigers prance across a screen,

Bright topaz denizens of a world of green.

They do not fear the men beneath the trees

They pace in sleek chivalric certainty. 

Aunt Jennifer's fingers fluttering through her wool    
Find even the ivory needle hard to pull.    
The massive weight of Uncle's wedding band  
Sits heavily upon Aunt Jennifer's hand.  
 
When Aunt is dead, her terrified hands will lie    
Still ringed with ordeals she was mastered by.    
The tigers in the panel that she made    
Will go on prancing, proud and unafraid.

The Roofwalker - Adrienne Rich 

Over the half-finished houses
night comes. The builders
stand on the roof. It is
quiet after the hammers,
the pulleys hang slack.
Giants, the roofwalkers,
on a listing deck, the wave
of darkness about to break
on their heads. The sky
is a torn sail where figures
pass magnified, shadows
on a burning deck.
I feel like them up there:
exposed, larger than life,
and due to break my neck.
Was it worth while to lay--
with infinite exertion--
a roof I can't live under?
--All those blueprints,
closings of gaps
measurings, calculations?
A life I didn't choose
chose me: even
my tools are the wrong ones
for what I have to do.
I'm naked, ignorant,
a naked man fleeing
across the roofs
who could with a shade of difference
be sitting in the lamplight
against the cream wallpaper
reading--not with indifference--
about a naked man
fleeing across the roofs.

Poems for a Sunny Day: Mary Oliver

What a beautiful day! A beautiful day to lounge in the sun, relax, soak up the light. One of those beautiful days you just want to sit and look at it all day, let it seep into your soul. 

And what better poet to read than Mary Oliver on such a day? Her poems really exhibit and explore how beautiful a day it really is, or can be, if we stop to take account of it all,  be attentive and appreciative, really look - 'Looking I mean not just standing around, but standing around as though with your arms open.' 

So since reading her today, that's what I've been trying to do. Sitting still in the sunny golden afternoon, looking and marvelling with my arms open.  I saw six pigeons frolick and splash about in the neighbourhood fountain, watched the blue sky haze with heat, lay on the grass, admired the flowers that have sprung up everywhere, got sunburned and listened to the birds singing and the green greening and the clouds drifting and came to the conclusion that yes, this really is a precious life. 

Mary Oliver's luminous sentiments are everywhere to behold, even in the chants of passers-bys' 'beautiful day!' greetings. The simple lyrics of these poems describe something so simple it  sometimes eludes us: to enjoy life.  So don't forget it. And sunny days remind us everytime.

Enjoying the sun, 

Siobhán.

 

Such Singing in the Wild Branches - Mary Oliver

It was spring
and finally I heard him
among the first leaves—
then I saw him clutching the limb

in an island of shade
with his red-brown feathers
all trim and neat for the new year.
First, I stood still

and thought of nothing.
Then I began to listen.
Then I was filled with gladness—
and that's when it happened,

when I seemed to float,
to be, myself, a wing or a tree—
and I began to understand
what the bird was saying,

and the sands in the glass
stopped
for a pure white moment
while gravity sprinkled upward

like rain, rising,
and in fact
it became difficult to tell just what it was that was singing—
it was the thrush for sure, but it seemed

not a single thrush, but himself, and all his brothers,
and also the trees around them,
as well as the gliding, long-tailed clouds
in the perfectly blue sky— all, all of them

were singing.
And, of course, yes, so it seemed,
so was I.
Such soft and solemn and perfect music doesn't last

for more than a few moments.
It's one of those magical places wise people
like to talk about.
One of the things they say about it, that is true,

is that, once you've been there,
you're there forever.
Listen, everyone has a chance.
Is it spring, is it morning?

Are there trees near you,
and does your own soul need comforting?
Quick, then— open the door and fly on your heavy feet; the song
may already be drifting away.

Peonies - Mary Oliver

This morning the green fists of the peonies are getting ready
   to break my heart
     as the sun rises,
        as the sun strokes them with his old, buttery fingers

and they open--
   pools of lace,
      white and pink--
       and all day the black ants climb over them,

boring their deep and mysterious holes
    into the curls,
      craving the sweet sap,
        taking it away

to their dark, underground cities--
   and all day
      under the shifty wind,
       as in a dance to the great wedding,

the flowers bend their bright bodies,
   and tip their fragrance to the air,
     and rise,
       their red stems holding

all that dampness and recklessness
    gladly and lightly,
      and there it is again--
        beauty the brave, the exemplary,

blazing open.
    Do you love this world?
      Do you cherish your humble and silky life?
       Do you adore the green grass, with its terror beneath?

Do you also hurry, half-dressed and barefoot, into the garden,
   and softly,
      and exclaiming of their dearness,
       fill your arms with the white and pink flowers,

with their honeyed heaviness, their lush trembling,
    their eagerness
      to be wild and perfect for a moment, before they are
        nothing, forever? 

The Summer Day - Mary Oliver

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean—
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down—
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life? 

A Writer's Work is Never Done (Or, The Closet Writer's Confession)

~It doesn't interest me what you do for a living. ...I want to know what you ache for, and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing. ~

Fact 1: a writer's work is never done. Fact 2: A writer's work is never 'seen' to be done or in the doing by other non-writer people.

By that, I mean a writer inhabits a private working sphere. We don't go to an office and clock in for a 9 t0 5 routine, a public 'proper' job so to speak. Our work is not a starched -stiff 'noun', it's not a place we go to where we adopt a professional persona, it's more of a flexible verb, a constant and ongoing process, a purpose-fuelled personal quest.

It's more than work. More than a job. It's a vocation. A pursuit. A pledge. A purpose. A fire. A be-all-and-end-all. It's consuming. It's everything. And that's why we commit everything to it. All hours of the day and night, all energy, all thought space. As Eugene Ionesco said, 'A writer never has a vacation. For a writer life consists of either writing or thinking about writing.' Because it's a passion, an obsession, a calling we have no say in or ability to decline. It is simply, who we are. 

It's true to say that a writer's work is never done. We have no set routines, but we write at all hours, usually into the wee hours and beyond. Instead of 9 to 5, how does 10am-2am sound? Or 2am - 10am? Not even while seated at the computer, but while travelling, eating, doing dishes, having a drink, walking, washing, even sometimes, while chatting to others. We can't switch it off; it's there all the time. Our muse is our demanding (and delightful) boss and when she calls, we drop everything. When it's going good, we don't get paid for overtime or when we manage to get something published, we don't get a double-bonus promotion or an applause. What we do get is an inner satisfaction, a glowing. It's all absorbed into the private world of our writer selves.

And to be a writer is to work in secret. An invisible job almost. No one knows we do it. Because it's done on the side of other things (or as I prefer - other things are done on the side of it.)

It's a silent and secret occupation. Unless you work in journalism, writing is a solitary private activity. Many of your family, friends and peers probably don't know (or don't care) that you do it. When you say you're busy working on something, they fob it off as an excuse - what could you possibly be working on in general leisure time? They don't see you typing frantically into the wee hours. Or if they do, they choose to disregard it, put it down to a hobby, a tic, or a personality default, jeez.

But we writers, we live for the written word; nothing else matters. What other job can compare to it? (Well, except to be an artist of course). It absorbs us. It's our life. So should I not feel particularly wounded when this 'profession' of ours, this purpose, this obsession, this grand raison d'etre - goes under the radar to other people? Like it doesn't count somehow in the great big boring work world of commutes and routines and wages and bosses etc, etc.

Oh but it does. It so does.

How many people out there I wonder, pursue what they really want in this life? Their dream occupation, what it is they really 'ache' for? Or how many just settle for a 9-to-5 - to make use of the ironic phrase -'to make a living'? How can you really 'live' if you're not doing what it is you yearn to be doing here in this life? What really makes you come alive? You can exist sure, but not live. And whatever your choice of dream-job, regardless of how practical or impractical it seems (-excuses made up be people who are afraid ), it can be done. And it matters.

Sometimes I feel like a closet writer. Like I'm two people: my public job persona (tutoring/teaching/proofreading/whatever) and then my private writing persona, the thing that I really want to pursue, the thing that defines who I am, who I want to be. And sometimes it gets overshadowed by the 'day-job'. Darn, I feel almost like Clark Kent, who had a superhero alter-ego to tend to! (Sudden image of all us writers rip-revealing a W-emblazoned t-shirt beneath our everyday disguises...) Well, look where Metropolis would have been if he'd neglected to attend to that secret profession! Because to him it wasn't a duty or a job, it was who he was. So when people dismiss what I do, it feels like they're dismissing not just my 'work', but who I am. Because you see, 'all writing is communication; creative writing is communication through revelation - it is the Self escaping into the open'. (- EB White).

So instead of succumbing to my day job charade, I wish I could proclaim to the world: look here, I'M A WRITER, a writer you know, and I WRITE!!! (to the theme tune of Superman - do-do-do-dododododo preferably....) I write every day, every night, for publication, for purpose, sometimes just for sanity, sometimes just to drop a penny wish into the great big well of the universe, but - THAT'S MY WORK. Now next time you ask what I'm doing, please respect when I say I'm busy. Because I am. It might be invisible work to you, but not to me. It's as damn important to me as saving the world was to Superman! So please - do not disturb!!!!!

Yes, a coming out of the closet of sorts. Even though it probably would be met with dismissal, indifference or contempt, it would be worth it. I guess that's what I'm partly doing here in this post. And what I intend on doing in the non-digital world soon. There's only so much Clark Kent caper a girl can take.....

~ Siobhán.

So You Want to be a Writer?

So You Want to be a Writer? - Charles Bukowski

if it doesn't come bursting out of you

in spite of everything,
don't do it.
unless it comes unasked out of your
heart and your mind and your mouth
and your gut,
don't do it.
if you have to sit for hours
staring at your computer screen
or hunched over your
typewriter
searching for words,
don't do it.
if you're doing it for money or
fame,
don't do it.
if you're doing it because you want
women in your bed,
don't do it.
if you have to sit there and
rewrite it again and again,
don't do it.
if it's hard work just thinking about doing it,
don't do it.
if you're trying to write like somebody
else,
forget about it.
if you have to wait for it to roar out of
you,
then wait patiently.
if it never does roar out of you,
do something else.

if you first have to read it to your wife
or your girlfriend or your boyfriend
or your parents or to anybody at all,
you're not ready.

don't be like so many writers,
don't be like so many thousands of
people who call themselves writers,
don't be dull and boring and
pretentious, don't be consumed with self-
love.
the libraries of the world have
yawned themselves to
sleep
over your kind.
don't add to that.
don't do it.
unless it comes out of
your soul like a rocket,
unless being still would
drive you to madness or
suicide or murder,
don't do it.
unless the sun inside you is
burning your gut,
don't do it.

when it is truly time,
and if you have been chosen,
it will do it by
itself and it will keep on doing it
until you die or it dies in you.

there is no other way.

and there never was.

***

Telling it like it is, as always, Charles Bukowski. (More to come on him later...)


And do you still want to be a writer after reading this? Do I? 


 -Hell yeah. 

(No more commentary needed. My first ever blog without it. This minimalist post - an exercise in validation, consolidation, and affirmation. And like a marriage vow, I say yes, I do. I do want to be a writer.)

tending the fire in the gut,

~ Siobhán.

O Sweet Spontaneous Earth: EE Cummings & Spring

Here we are, almost in 'official' Spring. Blue skies, green days, birds singing. I love Spring!  My favourite season. I love its get-up-and-go energy. I love seeing the sun again after so long. I love the 'spring' in everyone's step. I love the blue skies full of potential. I love the feeling of things coming back to life again: trees, flowers, birds, people, dreams. Hibernation over. All the budding and blooming  of possibilities, as Spring 'like a perhaps hand' spreads its seeds of curiousity, what ifs and miraculous maybes, across the land, to take root in and reawaken sleepy spirits. 

And maybe someone who loved Spring as much as I do: EE Cummings. Once again, I  dedicate this post (toast) to him. Maybe to every creative, Spring represents a time of inspiration after a fallow season. It certainly inspires me! And to explain that inspiration, I'm handing over to EE, because it's difficult to word-ify.

No one can describe Spring like this poet. Forget Wordsworth and his dull verses about daffodils! This is a time when our 'winging selves sing' and a time when 'everywhere space tastes of the amazement which is hope.' It is a time when our spirits soar, because 'all that was doubtful's certain, timid's bold; old's youthful and reluctant's eager now.' Youth and certainty and boldness, yes! And how do  you explain that skip in the step? Why it's when 'life's star prances the blinding blue' of course! Nothing, as he notes, is this 'keen' as Spring is.

EE Cummings is the only poet in my opinion who can capture the zest and essence of the season in words. His poems on Spring are such a joy to read. I dare you to read 'sweet spring is your' and try not to singsong along! Indeed, love is in the air when Spring is, 'for springtime is lovetime.' The birds and the bees and all that yes, but who would have thought it's because everyone breathes 'quite so many kinds of yes.' That pulsing of possibility, that pounding of passion, that high of hope. A time when we forget 'if' and remember 'yes.' Yes is what it's all about. 

I love what this poet can do with words, how he transforms them into energy, makes them  grand gramophones of emotion - that intangible, tangled mess of endorphins and adrenaline and thoughts and aches - into actual typeface. Incredible.

Included below are a few Spring-themed poems of his (there are many more!) that I particularly love. As I said before of EE Cummings' poems, I love the energy in them, the greening lyrics, the flowering sentiment, the 'zing' as they penetrate the heart via the mind and lodge themselves there, little green volts, sounding a chorus of heartsong. Read and enjoy and feel the budding and blooming of your mood as you do.

Happy Spring!

~ Siobhán.  

Spring is like a perhaps hand 

 Spring is like a perhaps hand

(which comes carefully 

out of Nowhere)arranging 

a window,into which people look(while 

people stare

arranging and changing placing 

carefully there a strange 

thing and a known thing here)and

changing everything carefully

spring is like a perhaps 

Hand in a window 

(carefully to 

and fro moving New and 

Old things,while 

people stare carefully 

moving a perhaps 

fraction of flower here placing 

an inch of air there)and

without breaking anything

 








now winging selves sing sweetly
now winging selves sing sweetly,while ghosts(there
and here)of snow cringe;dazed an earth shakes sleep
out of her brightening mind:now everywhere
space tastes of the amazement which is hope

gone are those hugest hours of dark and cold
when blood and flesh to inexistence bow
(all that was doubtful's certain,timid's bold;
old's youthful and reluctant's eager now)

anywhere upward somethings yearn and stir
piercing a tangled wrack of wishless known;
nothing is like this keen(who breathes us)air
immortal with the fragrance of begin

winter is over--now(for me and you,
darling!)life's star prances the blinding blue

in time of daffodils  
in time of daffodils (who know
the goal of living is to grow)
forgetting why,remember how

in time of lilacs who proclaim
the aim of waking is to dream,
remember so(forgetting seem)

in time of roses (who amaze
our now and here with paradise)
forgetting if,remember yes

in time of all sweet things beyond
whatever mind may comprehend,
remember seek (forgetting find)

and in a mystery to be
(when time from time shall set us free)
forgetting me,remember me

sweet spring is your 

sweet spring is your

time is my time is our

time for springtime is lovetime

and viva sweet love"

(all the merry little birds are

flying in the floating in the

very spirits singing in

are winging in the blossoming)

lovers go and lovers come

awandering awondering

but any two are perfectly

alone there's nobody else alive

(such a sky and such a sun

i never knew and neither did you

and everybody never breathed

quite so many kinds of yes)

not a tree can count his leaves

each herself by opening

but shining who by thousands mean

only one amazing thing

(secretly adoring shyly

tiny winging darting floating

merry in the blossoming

always joyful selves are singing)

"sweet spring is your

time is my time is our

time for springtime is lovetime

and viva sweet love"

*For more ee cummings, click here 

Life is More True than Reason will Deceive: EE Cummings & a Riposte to Reason!

“existing's tricky:but to live's a gift” 

  

Here I am writing against another tirade of cynicism, logic, reason and blah blah blah boring blasé haggering. I've been trying to weather the insistent downpouring of doubt upon my parade, naysayers and their woeful lamentations with a negative force of 10 on the Richter mood scale. Oh. And oh.

But here - a realisation - thank God I'm not a logical, practical, realist person! Life would be so boring and bland.  Not this coloured, reeling, alchemal world of imagination that mine is. 

Persistently practical people questioning all the great absolutes of living get on my nerves just a tad.  I believe in these wholes. These absolutes of beauty and possibilities and that life is to be lived, not analysed away - 'beware of heartless them/(given the scalpel, they dissect a kiss/or, sold the reason, they undream a dream) Yes, thank you EE Cummings. If it wasn't for poetry, I'd lose my footing at times in their cynical trenches. 

Because poetry is the one solid foundation of proof against these practical, science-wielding, logical lacklustre people. It proves that life is here for the living, enjoying, appreciating. Why should everything be explained and devalued and delineated into addings-up and making sense, and being 'realistic.' Realism will give you life in 2d; imagination a wonderful 3D ride. 

  

Poetry knows how it is. And I'm going to include some poems here by EE Cummings, avant-garde poet extraordinaire and one of my favourite poets ever. One of the reasons why I love this poet is because of the freedom and energy of his poems. In his life and his writing, he placed primary emphasis on feeling rather than thinking: he maintained that to be 'Alive' was to live at a heightened emotional intensity and, conversely, that merely to exist was the equivalent of being 'dead'. Hear hear! All ye logical, practical, tied-to-rules and regimented lives people, take note! 

His unique stylistic technique of lower-casing, jumbled-up syntax and lack of punctuation adds to the freestyle element - it was a form of rebellion for him against traditional forms and their restrictions both in life and in art.  (It was also a way of representing feeling first, rather than meaning - what was his main thematic interest. The poems may not make 'sense' on a 'logical' level at first glance, but they do evoke a powerful emotional response which contributes to an altogether more thorough understanding, ie a visceral, intellectual and emotional one. Indeed, a test to see whether you're a person of reason or passionate persuasions -  if you like his poetry or not!) 

And here, I'm including these poems as a form of rebellion for me, against the traditional restrictions being lashed upon not just me, but all free-spirited thinkers, who prefer to revel and appreciate and believe in what life has to offer - 'feeling first'; rather than analysing and debunking and explaining it all away with reason's steam-roller 'sense', doubt's dismissal and logic's nit-picking over meaning.

Someone once said that reading a poem a day is like taking a vitamin for the soul, well if that is the case, reading an EE Cummings poem a day must be equivalent to downing a mutli-vitamin tonic for living! He valued spontaneity and creativity above all else, and this comes across so energetically in his poems, that they seem to leap off the page and smack you in the face with a burst of blooms and smiles. Cummings had a Romantic view of life: his preference for emotion over reason, the natural life rather than the civilized life with all its complexities, mystery rather than certainty, poetry rather than science.

Those who pay attention to 'the syntax of things', as he puts it, will never truly or fully live. 'Deeper is life than lose, higher than have.' There's more to life than societal structures, set-ups, should-dos. And I know this, but sometimes I need reminding, whilst in the face of so much superficial, scientific, statistical, society-pleasing, spirit-sapping haranguing.

So thanks to reading some more EE, now maybe I can turn my mind to things like the importance of daffodils (which are seriusly underrated- who can gauge the full effect of their sunny disposition on passers-by - look at Wordsworth!) and all such Spring wonder, and silence the tut-tutting of tiresome (tired) critics.

So, let this post be for appreciating. For knocking reason on the head and glorying in the wonder of Spring and new sun and blue skies and daffodils and those topsy-turvy non-sensical feelings we get that we can't explain but take such joy in, the excitement of a hope tugging on our mind like a balloon, a pursuit of a possibility against all the odds, an indulging in a non-logical luxury, a bluebird dream in the heart coming to the hand, a belief in over-the-rainbow states of mind, a life where the small things don't overwhelm the big and smiles trump frowns and wishes win hands down on practical woes. There.


Stay tuned for more EE Cummings coming soon...

~ Siobhán.

Shame on all cynics and analytical reasoners! -

since feeling is first - ee cummings

since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you; 

wholly to be a fool
while Spring is in the world 

my blood approves,
and kisses are a better fate
than wisdom
lady i swear by all flowers. Don't cry
- the best gesture of my brain is less than
your eyelids' flutter which says 

we are for each other; then
laugh, leaning back in my arms
for life's not a paragraph 

And death i think is no parenthesis 

You're never foolish to appreciate everyday wonder and revel in it! :

may my heart always be open - ee cummings

may my heart always be open to little birds who are the secrets of living whatever they sing is better than to know and if men should not hear them men are old may my mind stroll about hungry and fearless and thirsty and supple and even if it's sunday may i be wrong for whenever men are right they are not young and may myself do nothing usefully and love yourself so more than truly there's never been quite such a fool who could fail pulling all the sky over him with one smile
And finally, my mantra against realism. Reason is not the means to understand life!! Life is a mystery, a wonder, an exhilaration to be felt and appreciated and awed, not reduced by the shackles of reason:

life is more true - ee cummings 

life is more true than reason will deceive

(more secret or than madness did reveal)
deeper is life than lose:higher than have
–but beauty is more each than living’s all

multiplied with infinity sans if
the mightiest meditations of mankind
cancelled are by one merely opening leaf
(beyond whose nearness there is no beyond)

or does some littler bird than eyes can learn
look up to silence and completely sing?
futures are obsolete:pasts are unborn
(here less than nothing’s more than everything)

death,as men call him, ends what they call men
-but beauty is more now than dying’s when