sapphicpenguin's review
3.0
This is a hard book to review. Because on the one hand, this selection of essays by a lesbian Jewish socialist feminist are immensely important and life-changing. On the other hand, she's a TERF.
Let me start again. I checked this book out from the library, not knowing a lot about Rich except that she was a feminist and she had written the famous essay on Compulsory Heterosexuality, which has been a really important theory for me over the years. From the get-go, I really connected with how she talked about womanhood and poetry, and I really respected her openness about sexuality and politics. I found myself in how she talked about her own gender, how she felt alienated from other women, how she wrote poetry because she couldn't exist without it, how she talks about growing up white in a racist country. And I didn't relate to but nevertheless found myself entranced by her descriptions of marriage to a man, of having children, of being Jewish.
About halfway through, I started getting weird vibes from some of the paragraphs about women. I couldn't find anything explicitly offensive or wrong, but some things didn't feel right. And so I looked up some of her opinions, and I discovered that yes, she's a Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminist. My comfort and connection with her words shattered. It didn't disappear, because I do relate to some of what she says-- but only in pieces. Only in quotes that I can pick up and look at, and then put away again. Only in ideas that more accepting people will co-opt and redefine over the years, like Comp-Het.
I decided to finish the book, and I am glad that I did. I want to make clear that there was no explicit transphobia (that I noticed) in the book. Transgender people/issues are simply not present. (The only mention of trans people is one of the authors in the bibliography, whose book is listed under the published [dead]name [which I understand from a publishing perspective], and copyrighted under his current name, while using his correct pronouns to list his website. The note reads: "The author . . . is today [current name], a transsexual man." The book was published in 2018, 6 years after Rich's death, so this was the editor's work, not hers.)
For essays written in the 70s through early 2000s by a cis woman, I kind of expected trans people to not be included, and I'm very thankful that this is in itself not an actively hateful work, just an incomplete one. Nonetheless, this should not overshadow the fact that what has been called the defining manuscript for transmisogyny, The Transsexual Empire by Janice Raymond (1979), cites Rich in the acknowledgements section, saying that she had been "a very special friend and critic. She has read the manuscript through all its stages and provided resources, constant criticism, and constant encouragement." A conversation between Raymond and Rich is detailed in one of the chapters, which I will not even summarize here-- it's absolutely disgusting. Article about this here.
Adrienne Rich, then, like so many feminists before and after her, will be admitted to the ranks of "influential feminists who did so much good and should be remembered/read/recognized but were also racist/homophobic/transphobic/ableist/something else disgusting." It's a large, diverse group and I hope she's happy there with her peers, which includes people from Susan B. Anthony to Margaret Sanger.
There's an essay in this book that I found especially interesting: "Rotten Names," which is about Rich coming to terms with the fact that one of her favorite poets, Wallace Stevens, was racist. She can't understand it-- how he could make such beautiful things, and hate a group of people. Reading it, I knew exactly what she meant. How could Rich, who had made such beautiful things, demonize trans women in the way she did? And she helped me understand:
Let me start again. I checked this book out from the library, not knowing a lot about Rich except that she was a feminist and she had written the famous essay on Compulsory Heterosexuality, which has been a really important theory for me over the years. From the get-go, I really connected with how she talked about womanhood and poetry, and I really respected her openness about sexuality and politics. I found myself in how she talked about her own gender, how she felt alienated from other women, how she wrote poetry because she couldn't exist without it, how she talks about growing up white in a racist country. And I didn't relate to but nevertheless found myself entranced by her descriptions of marriage to a man, of having children, of being Jewish.
About halfway through, I started getting weird vibes from some of the paragraphs about women. I couldn't find anything explicitly offensive or wrong, but some things didn't feel right. And so I looked up some of her opinions, and I discovered that yes, she's a Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminist. My comfort and connection with her words shattered. It didn't disappear, because I do relate to some of what she says-- but only in pieces. Only in quotes that I can pick up and look at, and then put away again. Only in ideas that more accepting people will co-opt and redefine over the years, like Comp-Het.
I decided to finish the book, and I am glad that I did. I want to make clear that there was no explicit transphobia (that I noticed) in the book. Transgender people/issues are simply not present. (The only mention of trans people is one of the authors in the bibliography, whose book is listed under the published [dead]name [which I understand from a publishing perspective], and copyrighted under his current name, while using his correct pronouns to list his website. The note reads: "The author . . . is today [current name], a transsexual man." The book was published in 2018, 6 years after Rich's death, so this was the editor's work, not hers.)
For essays written in the 70s through early 2000s by a cis woman, I kind of expected trans people to not be included, and I'm very thankful that this is in itself not an actively hateful work, just an incomplete one. Nonetheless, this should not overshadow the fact that what has been called the defining manuscript for transmisogyny, The Transsexual Empire by Janice Raymond (1979), cites Rich in the acknowledgements section, saying that she had been "a very special friend and critic. She has read the manuscript through all its stages and provided resources, constant criticism, and constant encouragement." A conversation between Raymond and Rich is detailed in one of the chapters, which I will not even summarize here-- it's absolutely disgusting. Article about this here.
Adrienne Rich, then, like so many feminists before and after her, will be admitted to the ranks of "influential feminists who did so much good and should be remembered/read/recognized but were also racist/homophobic/transphobic/ableist/something else disgusting." It's a large, diverse group and I hope she's happy there with her peers, which includes people from Susan B. Anthony to Margaret Sanger.
There's an essay in this book that I found especially interesting: "Rotten Names," which is about Rich coming to terms with the fact that one of her favorite poets, Wallace Stevens, was racist. She can't understand it-- how he could make such beautiful things, and hate a group of people. Reading it, I knew exactly what she meant. How could Rich, who had made such beautiful things, demonize trans women in the way she did? And she helped me understand:
"Reading Stevens in other years I had tried to write off [his racism] as a painful but encapsulated lesion on the imagination, a momentary collapse of the poet's intelligence. I treated [his racist characters] as happenstance, accidental. There in the high desert I finally understood: This is a key to the whole. Don't try to extirpate, censor, or defend it. Stevens's reliance on [racist characters] is a watermark in his poetry. To understand how he places himself in relation to these . . . is to understand more clearly the meanings . . . It's to grasp the deforming power of racism . . . over the imagination-- not only of this poet, but of the collective poetry of which he was a part, the poetry in which I, as a young woman, had been trying to take my place." (pp. 276-277)
This is one of the things I am taking with me: that her transphobic comments are not a tiny part or a momentary collapse. They are part of Adrienne Rich's whole. I need to grasp the deforming power of transphobia over her imagination, and the writings of her peers, where I, a queer person, am trying to take my place.
This book is much less complicated than its author, and it's a worthwhile book. There are much more worthwhile books, written by better authors, that I will read in the future. Let's learn our past and our present, and look toward the future. Let's not forget Rich's poetry or ideas, but let's find better people to read political theory by.
spacesongs's review
4.0
docked one star down because adrienne rich was allegedly a terf.
this was my introduction to rich’s writing, having never read her poetry before. these are illuminating essays that continue to make for timely reading today, and i really appreciate her consistent attempts to locate a historical/material situatedness in poetry. her essays that push for poetics as a praxis of survival are especially convincing. as i was reading, i found myself constantly asking, “what would adrienne rich say about our world in 2022?”
like what other reviewers have pointed out, some of her feminist/lesbian critiques can feel dated now, but i don’t think that’s necessarily rich’s fault because she was writing in the radfem climate that dominated the 70s and 80s. this explains her tendency to rely on gender binaries and bioessentialist readings of the ‘female’ body, which you would be hard-pressed to find in queer studies curricula nowadays. rich is reflexively aware of these issues, and acknowledges that she is not a theorist by training nor does she have the final say on how we should conduct sexual politics—rather, she is trying to propose new epistemic perspectives for feminists as a starting point. i think she achieved what she set out to do, and i imagine reading this stuff in the 80s would have been revelatory.
this was my introduction to rich’s writing, having never read her poetry before. these are illuminating essays that continue to make for timely reading today, and i really appreciate her consistent attempts to locate a historical/material situatedness in poetry. her essays that push for poetics as a praxis of survival are especially convincing. as i was reading, i found myself constantly asking, “what would adrienne rich say about our world in 2022?”
like what other reviewers have pointed out, some of her feminist/lesbian critiques can feel dated now, but i don’t think that’s necessarily rich’s fault because she was writing in the radfem climate that dominated the 70s and 80s. this explains her tendency to rely on gender binaries and bioessentialist readings of the ‘female’ body, which you would be hard-pressed to find in queer studies curricula nowadays. rich is reflexively aware of these issues, and acknowledges that she is not a theorist by training nor does she have the final say on how we should conduct sexual politics—rather, she is trying to propose new epistemic perspectives for feminists as a starting point. i think she achieved what she set out to do, and i imagine reading this stuff in the 80s would have been revelatory.
isabelkitarj's review against another edition
4.0
Essays on a wide range of topics – I really enjoyed the literary criticism / commentary and the insightful, foundational essays on feminism, motherhood, lesbianism, and Judaism. The more political (rather than sociocultural) essays stuck with me less.
shuashwa18's review
challenging
informative
inspiring
reflective
tense
medium-paced
5.0
I couldn’t put this down. Rich writes with a concrete vigor in her prose that transfixes the reader, endlessly fascinating and stimulating the mind.
mehar_anaokar's review
3.0
(Read chapters - uncollected, blood bread and poetry, woman and bird, a poets education)