What is Found There: Notebooks on Poetry and Politics (Expanded)

by Adrienne Rich

Book Overview

The "impulse to enter, with other humans, through language, into the order and disorder of the world, is poetic at its root as surely as it is political at its root," writes Adrienne Rich at the beginning of her powerful new prose work. What Is Found There is Rich's response to her impulse as a poet to know poetry fully, to plumb and scale and inhabit it; it is also, profoundly, Rich's attempt to bring poetry into the lives of many kinds of people - out of the academy, away from the literary magazines. In a voice that is generous, bold, and personal, Rich uses the poet's materials - journals and letters, dreams, memories, and close reading of the work of many poets - to reflect on poetry and politics, to consider how they enter and impinge on an American life, and what it means to be a citizen of a fragmented country, part of a people turned inward for safety. Rich acknowledges the cost of this turning: "We have rarely, if ever, known what it is to tremble with fear, to lament, to rage, to praise, to solemnize, to say We have done this, to our sorrow; to say Enough, to say We will, to say We will not. To lay claim to poetry." But she acknowledges hope as well. Speaking to poets, to readers of poetry, to all of us who imagine and desire a humane civil life, Rich lays claim to poetry as an instrument of change, and offers up its possibilities: "I see the life of North American poetry at the end of the century as a pulsing, racing convergence of tributaries - regional, ethnic, racial, social, sexual - that, rising from lost or long-blocked springs, intersect and infuse each other while reaching back to the strengths of their origins."

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0393312461
• ISBN13: 9780393312461
• Release Date: October 2003
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Length: 344 Pages
• Weight: 0.86 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.5" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

Better Late Than Never To Read A Great Book!

Adrienne Rich is my current literary hero. And, no, her What Is Found There: Notebooks on Poetry and Politics isn't about feminism. It is about remaining human and maintaining artistic integrity in the face of the dehumanizing influences of our world. Rich calls into question W. H. Auden's oft quoted line "poetry does nothing," introduces readers to marginalized poets we ignore to our own loss, and demonstrates how poetry does considerably more than one might imagine. If I could afford it, copies of her book would go to everyone on my holiday gift list.

Style and Substance

Rich's collection of essays on poetry, WHAT IS FOUND THERE, is a superb tapestry of provocative, incisive, and relevant ruminations on poetry. What I really liked about this book is Rich's ability to connect poetry to one's everyday life, not describing it as something to be read by an elite, educated few.() Still, this book moved me and, as a student of poetry, I am inspired and hopeful that poetry and the discussion of it still thrives, contrary to many predictions.

Fabulous book on writing, the world and politics!

One of the best books on the place of poetry in the world. A beautifully written collection of prose that discusses the integral connection between poetry and politics. Rich shows the power and passion of the written word and the changes it is able to bring about. Passionately written and surprisingly easy to read.