Jeanette Winterson / Adrienne Rich

Η Jeanette Winterson λέει λίγα λόγια για την Adrienne Rich και διαλέγει για μας ένα αγαπημένο ποιήμα της.
[αναδημοσίευση από την ιστοσελίδα της J. Winterson].

NOVEMBER 1968
[from the collection The Will to Change - poems 1968-1970]

Adrienne Rich - b 1929 - American.

I chose this poem for this month because it is about change, and because it is the first poem of Adrienne Rich's that I read , way back in 1978, when I went to Oxford, and amazingly, met someone who was interested in the (then) new Women's Movement, and the kind of writing that feminism and radicalism could produce.

Of course the thing about Rich is not that she is a feminist poet, or a radical poet, though she is both - but that she is a poet. The real thing...
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Stripped
you're beginning to float free
up through the smoke of bushfires
and incinerators
the unleafed branches won't hold you
nor the radar aerials

You're what the autumn knew would happen
after the last collapse
of primary colour
once the last absolutes were torn to pieces
you could begin

How you broke open, what sheathed you
until this moment
I know nothing about it
my ignorance of you amazes me
now that I watch you
starting to give yourself
away to the wind

-----
Η Adrienne Rich διαβάζει:

From: bboldt2