Poetry Everywhere: "What Kind of Times Are These" by Adrienne Rich

[@jamesallen16]

MS Rich's collected works are among the most important poems I have read. She was known for her integrity. There were no two personalities, one for public and another for private consumption. She was exactly what she appeared. Her friends Audrey Lorde ("The Black Unicorn") and Alice Walker are among the many who also reflected this honesty and elevated social consiousness for the margianalized in this country. So much talent, so much insight. How I wish I could have met her. Her didain for "comfortable poetry" is shared. RIP

[@janjamm]

These times and all others will be less without you, Adrienne Rich. They could not make you disappear. Thank you for your persistent, fierce, lyrical voice.

[@arcadiaberger9204]

There's a place between two stands of trees where the grass grows uphill and the old revolutionary road breaks off into shadows near a meeting-house abandoned by the persecuted who disappeared into those shadows. I've walked there picking mushrooms at the edge of dread, but don't be fooled this isn't a Russian poem, this is not somewhere else but here, our country moving closer to its own truth and dread, its own ways of making people disappear. I won't tell you where the place is, the dark mesh of the woods meeting the unmarked strip of light- ghost-ridden crossroads, leafmold paradise: I know already who wants to buy it, sell it, make it disappear. And I won't tell you where it is, so why do I tell you anything? Because you still listen, because in times like these to have you listen at all, it's necessary to talk about trees.

[@movingbreath]

Thank-you very much for sharing the words of this beautiful poem

[@arcadiaberger9204]

@@movingbreath Very much my pleasure. I came to poetry late and a bit reluctantly, claiming I was blind to it, but I have come to appreciate it deeply in recent years.

[@PoetryETrain]

Thank you Adrienne, R.I.P. Added to a playlist...

[@JayJonson1]

Thanks for all you did. Your voice and vision will be sorely missed. Condolences to your family.

[@lee.bythesea]

i read this poem for my pol entry!! fantastic poem :)))

[@soldtobediers]

Brings strong to mind what I can recall in the lines below... In the glare of the light I see a strange kind of sight Of cages joined to form a star Each person can't go very far All tied to their things Their netted by the strings Free to flutter in memories of their wasted wings ~Peter Gabriel ''The Cage''

[@bellyjewel]

RIP and thanks for enriching our lives.

[@HimanshuVora]

Great! Thank you for sharing.

[@sbalman]

Beautiful!

[@frankcorrenti5941]

How can we but give blessings except by our imitations? We each fumble forward in our own legitimate ways.

[@buttermere4]

wonderful

[@shediogenes]

Rest in peace, we will miss you so.

[@mazyarmahdavifar]

I love you. Rest in peace.

[@carolineschaillee3180]

Precient , restorative even as now in 2023 people and things, the natural world (and intersectionality feminism) are being made ( legislated and censored ) to disappear. And yet you left us with your powerful words.. your soul piercing expression of a fierce hope ... that which I share, as do the many more who keep the faith and" fight against the dying of the light".

[@cataleo1]

RIP Adrienne

[@rigamarrow]

Just what need:officious, felt congratulatory revolutionary.

[@kelseydanielle7268]

Fire

[@louismattajr9040]

Fantastic Universiallity that transcended opinion, keep shaking your fist at evil fate.

[@kant1066]

Yeah! Totally! Poems shouldn't have metaphors at all!

[@babylonbuttons385]

listening to this and thinking about the recent firing of Robert Buckingham at the University of Saskatchewan

[@kant1066]

Ya think?

[@GirlPagesNetwork]

Lesbian Poet Adrienne Rich XOXO

[@kentbrrako]

Sarcasm much ?