The School Among the Ruins: Poems 2000-2004

by Adrienne Rich

Book Overview

In this new collection Adrienne Rich confronts dislocations and upheavals in the United States at the beginning of the twenty-first century. The title poem, in a young schoolteacher's voice, evokes the lessons that children ("Not of course here") learn amid violence and hatred, "when the whole town flinches / blood on the undersole thickening to glass." "Usonian Journals 2000" intercuts faces and conversations, building to a dystopic/utopic vision. Throughout these fierce and musical poems, Rich traces the imprint of a public crisis on individual experience: personal lives bent by collective realities, language itself held to account.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0393059839
• ISBN13: 9780393059830
• Release Date: September 2004
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Length: 120 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.8" x 8.6"

Customer Reviews

Rich continues to surprise...

In 1988 my ardent feminist girlfriend gave me a copy of "The Fact of a Doorframe" (the 1984 edition) and told me not to speak to her again until I finished reading it. This seemed an odd request, but since I really wanted to speak to her again, I read it. Rich's uncompromising passion not only moved me; it started a process that changed my view of the world and ended up changing my life. I guess you should expect that from a writer this powerful. She never fails to surprise me. This book is no exception. P.S. I particularly love "Your Native Land, Your Life", "The Dream of a Common Language", and "What is Found There". ("What is Found There" is supposed to be essays and letters but it seems like poetry to me.)

A pearl cast before at least one swine

No greater poet exists. The School Among the Ruins is her best work in years--she is at the top of her game. This is taut, lyric poetry. Beautiful in form and thought. And, as always with Rich, informed by excellent ethics and motives. She is a poet who has successfully challenged social injustice with her poetry. She doesn't have to justify herself to anyone--certainly not the reviewer from Ohio--but I feel I must.