Scan barcode
cwalsh's review against another edition
5.0
“even you, fellow-creature, sister
sitting across from me, dark with love,
working like me to pick apart
working with me to remake
this trailing knitted thing, this cloth of darkness
this woman's garment, trying to save the skein”
sitting across from me, dark with love,
working like me to pick apart
working with me to remake
this trailing knitted thing, this cloth of darkness
this woman's garment, trying to save the skein”
gracewiley's review against another edition
4.5
Favorite poems:
- From the Prison House
- Dialogue
- Diving into the Wreck
- Rape
- For a Sister
- For the Dead
smuds2's review against another edition
3.0
This is my second A. Rich poetry collection -- and at this point I feel like I might just not be a Rich girlie (I am a guy).
I liked, as a whole, the Phenomonology of Anger the most, but there wasn't any in that section that particularly hit.
I can grasp at first glance the kind of anger and feeling of.. i don't know... regret? At her interactions with men. In most poems. but beyond that, I don't particularly love the auditory quality of the poems, or the feeling of them. They feel too opaque to me -- probably, again, because i am a guy.
My favorites were:
Living in the Cave
For the Dead
From the Prison House
Song
Rape (I didn't really 'enjoy' this one -- is it possible to?)
I liked, as a whole, the Phenomonology of Anger the most, but there wasn't any in that section that particularly hit.
I can grasp at first glance the kind of anger and feeling of.. i don't know... regret? At her interactions with men. In most poems. but beyond that, I don't particularly love the auditory quality of the poems, or the feeling of them. They feel too opaque to me -- probably, again, because i am a guy.
My favorites were:
Living in the Cave
For the Dead
From the Prison House
Song
Rape (I didn't really 'enjoy' this one -- is it possible to?)
forgottensecret's review against another edition
3.0
Adrienne Rich (1929-2012) was an American poet, called 'one of the most widely read and influential poets of the second half of the 20th century.' Like Richard Siken, she was also a recipient of the Yale Series of Younger Poets Award, chosen at that time by W.H. Auden.
Diving into the Wreck is her seventh book of poetry and won her the National Book Award for Poetry in 1974. Although the latter sections grabbed me more, I did not connect much to Rich's poems. Simply put, for the most part, I could not pinpoint what they were saying. Or if I could, it was snippets and not the whole. Some beautiful images, but I was unable to hop on alongside the trains of thought that she steamed by on.
Diving into the Wreck is her seventh book of poetry and won her the National Book Award for Poetry in 1974. Although the latter sections grabbed me more, I did not connect much to Rich's poems. Simply put, for the most part, I could not pinpoint what they were saying. Or if I could, it was snippets and not the whole. Some beautiful images, but I was unable to hop on alongside the trains of thought that she steamed by on.
sol_13's review against another edition
4.0
Empezando por lo de fuera: esta edición bilingüe (inglés y castellano) muy bonita y con detalles perteneciente a cada idioma en dos tintas (azul y negra), aunque los poemas, siempre en páginas enfrentadas (inglés pares y castellano impares) se encuentran escritos íntegramente en color negro.
Podría hablar del título un buen rato de forma completamente separada al texto, pero me parece en resumen un buen reflejo de la poesía de como se zambulle en el proceso de escritura todo lo que naufraga y pierde flote. No es un hecho ni consecuencia del naufragio es una acción consciente de sumersión.
Este libro lo comencé pretendiendo leerlo en su idioma original, el inglés, y pudo ser mi error al comenzar y la razón que hizo que se me atravesara. Es cierto que la traducción, puede que incluso más en poesía donde la elección de una palabra puede albergar matices muy distintos, supone un proceso de escritura nuevo y por eso me gusta dentro de mi conocimiento del idioma leer ciertas cosas en el idioma que se escribieron, pero no me siento igual de cómoda. En inglés no dejo de sentirme extraña y no lo siento mío de forma que cambié de parecer leyendo en castellano prácticamente de corrido sin atender a las páginas pares. También que la parte en inglés se posicione en esas páginas hacía más tediosa y rara su lectura por la apertura del libro occidental. Por esto creo que claramente la presencia del original es complemento y en este caso no para mí.
No es una poesía visceral sino de abstracción y reflexión. Es una poesía introspectiva, pero en continuo roce y compromiso con lo social. Algunos texto se sienten casi como un cuento de terror, intriga y perturbación con estallido final de efecto. Realmente leerla engancha. Se refiere a la naturaleza de lo humano, a la naturaleza del lenguaje y la compresión, la comunicación y la herida. Habla de lo más humano que se encuentra enterrado en la sociedad y en lo que se sumerge para observar qué restos todavía quedan y las cosas que perdimos.
Podría hablar del título un buen rato de forma completamente separada al texto, pero me parece en resumen un buen reflejo de la poesía de como se zambulle en el proceso de escritura todo lo que naufraga y pierde flote. No es un hecho ni consecuencia del naufragio es una acción consciente de sumersión.
Este libro lo comencé pretendiendo leerlo en su idioma original, el inglés, y pudo ser mi error al comenzar y la razón que hizo que se me atravesara. Es cierto que la traducción, puede que incluso más en poesía donde la elección de una palabra puede albergar matices muy distintos, supone un proceso de escritura nuevo y por eso me gusta dentro de mi conocimiento del idioma leer ciertas cosas en el idioma que se escribieron, pero no me siento igual de cómoda. En inglés no dejo de sentirme extraña y no lo siento mío de forma que cambié de parecer leyendo en castellano prácticamente de corrido sin atender a las páginas pares. También que la parte en inglés se posicione en esas páginas hacía más tediosa y rara su lectura por la apertura del libro occidental. Por esto creo que claramente la presencia del original es complemento y en este caso no para mí.
No es una poesía visceral sino de abstracción y reflexión. Es una poesía introspectiva, pero en continuo roce y compromiso con lo social. Algunos texto se sienten casi como un cuento de terror, intriga y perturbación con estallido final de efecto. Realmente leerla engancha. Se refiere a la naturaleza de lo humano, a la naturaleza del lenguaje y la compresión, la comunicación y la herida. Habla de lo más humano que se encuentra enterrado en la sociedad y en lo que se sumerge para observar qué restos todavía quedan y las cosas que perdimos.
katnissevergreen's review against another edition
5.0
"the thing I came for: the wreck and not the story of the wreck the thing itself and not the myth"
"It sees the violence embedded in silence"
"It sees the violence embedded in silence"
itsemilyshafer's review against another edition
adventurous
fast-paced
3.0
She writes with very intriguing language.
dmsehnert's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
4.25
adrienne! forever thinking about my poetry professor’s description of her work - “you have no idea what she’s saying but yet at the same time, you feel it in your bones”
favorite lines include:
“It is strange to be so many women, eating and drinking at the same table,
favorite lines include:
“It is strange to be so many women, eating and drinking at the same table,
those who bathed their children in the same basin
who kept their secrets from each other walked the floors of their lives in separate rooms
and flow into history now as the woman of their time” - after twenty years
“it sees
the violence
embedded in silence
who kept their secrets from each other walked the floors of their lives in separate rooms
and flow into history now as the woman of their time” - after twenty years
“it sees
the violence
embedded in silence
This eye
is not for weeping
its vision
must be unblurred” - from the prison house
its vision
must be unblurred” - from the prison house
this one is just the entire poem because i love it so much and will be thinking about it until the day i die
“She sits with one hand poised against her head, the other turning an old ring to the light for hours our talk has beaten like rain against the screens a sense of August and heat-lightning
I get up, go to make tea, come back
we look at each other
then she says (and this is what I live through over and over) -she says: I do not know if sex is an illusion
I do not know
who I was when I did those things
or who I said I was
or whether I willed to feel
what I had read about
or who I said I was
or whether I willed to feel
what I had read about
or who in fact was there with me
or whether I knew, even then
that there was doubt about these things” - dialogue
or whether I knew, even then
that there was doubt about these things” - dialogue
kjw's review against another edition
2.0
2.5/5: Mixed feelings about this one bc I’m always a fan of any poetry that confronts its political context directly but Rich’s TERF (anti-trans) politics so are hard to escape: her supposedly “radical” poetics often reduce themselves to TERF-y perspectives on solidarity that reproduce anti-trans logic.
BUT what complicates the collection for me is that there are several poems (including the “Diving into the Wreck,” which gives the collection its name) that I read as pretty gender fluid— it’s very possible that I’m just projecting here (lol) but it does rescue(?) the collection somewhat.
Also Rich is an undeniably great image-maker, but her social critique poems (especially those about Vietnam) have a tendency to avoid describing the oppressed as agents of their own resistance and liberation, which I found frustrating
BUT what complicates the collection for me is that there are several poems (including the “Diving into the Wreck,” which gives the collection its name) that I read as pretty gender fluid— it’s very possible that I’m just projecting here (lol) but it does rescue(?) the collection somewhat.
Also Rich is an undeniably great image-maker, but her social critique poems (especially those about Vietnam) have a tendency to avoid describing the oppressed as agents of their own resistance and liberation, which I found frustrating