Arts of the Possible: Essays and Conversations

by Adrienne Rich

Book Overview

These essays trace a distinguished writer's engagement with her time, her arguments with herself and others. I am a poet who knows the social power of poetry, a United States citizen who knows herself irrevocably tangled in her society's hopes, arrogance, and despair, Adrienne Rich writes. The essays in Arts of the Possible search for possibilities beyond a compromised, degraded system, seeking to imagine something else. They call on the fluidity...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0393323129
• ISBN13: 9780393323122
• Release Date: May 2002
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Length: 204 Pages
• Weight: 0.56 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.6" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

Delicately created and stimulating

If you have ever thought about the relationship between art and politics, or art and social justice, Adrienne Rich's collection of essays and conversations is a must read. In "When We Dead Awaken" (Chapt 1) - Interweaving prose and poetry, Rich demonstrates how she slowly came to terms with her identity as a female poet - a process she termed, "awakening of dead or sleeping consciousness." A process that would seem vital for any oppressed group, Rich explains how after years of sleepwalking, under the direction of men, women were slowly "awakening," re-visioning their past and drawing conclusions on the present. The book alone is worth reading simply for the 3rd chapter, a philosophical and feminist perspective on lying. "Women and Honor: Some Notes on Lying" is a unique and compelling treatise on the causes and effects of lying.

Rich is a national treasure

Please ignore the review above. It's author seems to have missed thepoint entirely. This book is essential reading, as all of Rich's books are. One of our greatest writers.