this collection of essays moved me to examine the relationships that occur in my own family. saturdays mother was especially moving.

As of this writing, *Your Native Land...* is ranked in the 250,000 range on Amazon's rankings of books bought. My suspicion is that most volumes of this book start in poetry classes or women's reading groups, and find their way to other people close to the readers' hearts.

This volume contains four poems--two long, two shorter--which have made a big impact on this reader and many others. The two long poems which bracket the volume are "Sources," which evokes Rich's conflicted Jewish heritage, and "Contradictions: Tracking Poems," which works outward from the poet's lifelong struggle with serious arthritic pain to propose connections between "the body's pain and the pain on the streets." In both of these long poems, Rich makes her particular experiences serve as a framework for addressing the struggles of a range of people, including her 1970s constituency of American women but moving outward to engage with people across the world. That the poet must do this is the message of her poem "North American Time," which readers of earlier Rich poems might see as a rebuke to those poems' assumed facts about people's experiences. North American Time makes clear that the poet's intentions in the moment of writing may not last, but that the effects of those words does last: "we move/ but our words stand/ become responsible//and this is verbal privilege." In this poem, Rich makes her "privilege" one of a continuous witnessing of the lives of those around her (and far away, in other countries), in which the poet's language has to reflect these specifics.

In "In the Wake of Home," though, Rich gives a painfully sad and affecting picture of American middle-class home life and its losses. At the heart of home, she writes, is a "hole torn and patched over again." The connections Rich makes between this kind of pain "in the wake of home" and the much ! larger-scale violences of slavery and homelessness are not ! as convincing as similar connections made elsewhere in the volume; still, this poem shows Rich's conflicted approach to the problems of poetry she works to define throughout the volume, an approach of immense responsibility and power.

I have revisited this book many times since it was published ten years ago. In her 13-poem collection, Rich turns her penetrating poet's gaze to "the difficult world"--malathion strawberries (p. 3), missiles in the desert (p. 5), silence (p. 10), car graveyards (p. 11), waste (p. 11), Wounded Knee, Los Alamos, Selma (p. 12), death on the Appalachian Trail (p. 14), and loneliness (p. 19). These are not "feel-good" poems, and the title poem is stronger than others.

"These are not the roads you know me by," she writes in her Whitman-like title poem, "but the woman driving, walking, watching from life and death is the same" (p. 5). As these poems reveal, Rich writes with stunning honesty from her heart, soul, and the marrow of her bones (p. 51).

G. Merritt

I'm surprised no substantial reviews of *Atlas* have been posted, as anyone who has read it knows that Rich's survey of American life during the Gulf War era (in the title poem) is an unforgettable document of our time. Rich is known as a feminist writer and radical critic, and that impression scares off undergraduates for whom feminism is too loaded a term. This book, especially the title poem, "Eastern War Time," and "Tattered Kaddish," shows that Rich's feminist insight does not limit her attention--or relevance--to women subjects and readers.

Many lines from "An Atlas of the Difficult World" stay with me, but from its final section, I'll give this as an example of how Rich strives to find in her readers equal partners, sharing her task of representing all of American life:

I know you are reading this poem which is not in your language guessing at some words while others keep you reading and I want to know which words they are... I know you are reading this poem because there is nothing else left to read there where you have landed, stripped as you are.

Rich sees her readers as stripped of innocence, of the ability to make casual assumptions about their lives in America and the world. But these poems offer the gift of understanding our current state, and of a beautiful, surprisingly generous description of us all.

It is a touching example of poetry expressing life's struggles. Anyone can relate to Rich's amazing words and thoughts. Please give this book a try!

Adrienne Rich's prose collection Blood, Bread and Poetry spans almost sixteen years of writing. Those who are familiar with Rich's poems will find themselves in familiar intellectual and emotional territories. While I enjoy Rich's poetry much more than her prose (who doesn't enjoy poetry more than prose), Blood,... still had a freshness of voice and language that was surprising for a book that tackles philosophical and political material. For those who are interested in really delving into Rich's poetry (and her writings in general) the book is definitely worth reading at least once. I also feel the book is a must for anyone who is serious about writing. Overall, it was a satisfying read that I've come back to on occasion

This book, and all of Rich's books, are the kind you want to give to everyone you know. Thoroughly enriching. They should be read by all poets, thinkers, women,....and , yes, men too.

"Blood, Bread, and Poetry: Selected Prose 1979-1985" brings together a thought-provoking collection of essays and speeches by Adrienne Rich. A prolific poet, Jewish woman, feminist, lesbian, political activist, and mother of three sons, Rich attempts to bring all of the pieces of herself into play as she confronts a host of intellectual, artistic, and ethical issues.

As the book's subtitle indicates, all of these pieces were written between 1979 and 1985, and thus the book as a whole serves as a valuable document of the intellectual work of a radical thinker under the neo-conservative shadow of the Reagan era. The book also evokes the waning decade of the Cold War.

Rich writes with great passion about feminism, and with great anger about the violence and oppression directed at lesbians from centuries past to the time in which these pieces were written. She often quotes or pays tribute to other writers who have inspired and impacted her: James Baldwin, Audre Lorde, and others.

Rich covers much intriguing ground in these prose pieces. "The Problem of Lorraine Hansberry" may inspire you to re-read Hansberry's classic play "A Raisin in the Sun." "Split at the Root: An Essay on Jewish Identity" is a compelling autobiographical piece that examines her mixed Jewish/gentile heritage, her marriage and life as a mother, and her eventual emergence as a lesbian. A number of essays deal with her interest in the Sandinista revolution of Nicaragua.

Despite the often grim and humorless subject matter, I find Rich to be a remarkably engaging writer. At best, her work is challenging and genuinely thoughtful. As companion texts to this worthwhile collection I recommend the following: Audre Lorde's essay collection "Sister Outsider" and Tony Kushner's two-part play "Angels in America." For complementary perspectives on revolutionary Nicaragua, try the poetry of Gioconda Belli and Daisy Zamora. Finally, check out the two inaugural addresses of Reagan as well as former New York Governor Mario Cuomo's keynote address to the 1984 Democratic Convention; these political speeches can be found in the more recent editions of "A Documentary History of the United States," edited by Richard Heffner.

This book is blood, sweat and tears. It is the sweet succulence of love. Her poetry is bitter and rich.

This is simply a swell collections of poems. Some are sweet, others painful. All are provoking.

June Jordan's poetry beats furiously in the name of love: for Haruko, for life, for real. Since the human language is inadequate to truly express this emotion, Jordan manipulates and bends the written word to fit the human heart. When she describes love as "yes directed by desire" ("When I or Else"), she speaks the living truth.

Read "Free Flight", "Roman Poem Number Five" and "12:01 A.M." and let her words reverberate in your every mental crevice. Let your feelings stir as hers until you see with love's eyes. That is the definition of poetry.

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.

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.

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.

The poems that are included in this book are particulary noteworthy for their angst. Rich weaves words into powerful images that portray her stuggle as a woman, a lover, and as a human being.

This collection of poems was written during the early years (1971-72) of her career as a poet. Although the imagery and voice are understandably not as clearly defined as in her recent work, this book is a must read for anyone who is interested in the development of poetic voice and style.

Adrienne Rich is one of America's best poets, and this is certainly her best collection. To use the word "angst" to describe these poems (as a previous reviewer did) is to diminish these works of volcanic beauty. This collection reads very well as an organic whole, but some of the best individual poems are "Incipience," "The Stranger," and, of course, the title poem. Common themes of awakening and discovery run through this book; I wish that every women would read these poems. Rich finally shakes free of the masculine poetic establishment and rejects male mythology as she writes:

A man is asleep in the next room/ We are his dreams/ We have the heads and breasts of women/ the bodes of birds of prey/ Sometimes we turn into silver serpents

Rich dives into the wreck and comes out transformed. Don't miss this opportunity to explore your own wreck.

Adrienne Rich (b. 1929) has developed into one of the United States' best known poets. She won the National Book Award in 1974 and received a MacArthur Fellowship in 1994. Her book, "The Fact of a Doorframe" consists of a selection she has made from her first nine volumes of poetry written between 1950 and 1983.

I found it interesting to read this book in sequence (from cover to cover) to see the development of Ms Rich's themes as a poet. The early collections, through the mid-1960s, focus on descriptions of nature and on Rich's unhappy marriage experience. For the most part, the poetry is in traditional verse forms There is a concreteness and an accessiblity to them that will carry over into Ms. Rich's later work. I enjoyed the the early poem "At a Bach Concert" (several of Rich's poems feature her reflections on music) and her 1960 poem "Propsective Immigrants Please Note" This poem basically is a commentary on Emma Lazarus's poem, "The New Collussus" America itself, for Rich, makes no promises. She writes: "The door itself/makes no promises./It is only a door."

In the middle portions of the book, the poems become more overtly political and polemical in character. There are sharp criticisms of the War in Vietnam, of the Cold War, of the treatment of Native Americans in the United States, and of environmental desecration. This tendency in Ms Rich's poetry appears, as far as I can tell, somewhat before her focus on womens' issues and on same-sex sexual relationships. The poetry remains predominantly traditional in format although it becomes more experimental and stylistaclly free. It is didactic and clear to read.

The poetry begins to speak distinctly of womens' issues and of lesbian relationships in the collections of the late 1960s. The poems are sometimes sharp in tone, rejecting of men in many instances, and celebrate the commradeship and shared experiences of women and the tenderness that Rich finds in same-sex sexual experiences. The emphasis on mostly left political activism also continues. I found impressive Rich's long sonnet sequence "Twenty-One Love Poems" and the poem "A Woman Dead in her Forties" from the 1978 collection "A Dream of a Common Language. I also enjoyed her tribute to the Novelist Ellen Glasgow, in a late poem in the collection, "The Education of a Novelist." I enjoyed her poem on Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, much as I love that work (Ms Rich does not), and her two translations from the Yiddish poet Kadia Molodowsky. Ms Rich's poetic voice is not limited to feminist issues.

I think this is a good collection to get to understand the work of Ms. Rich. It works better than a poem or two in an anthology. In addition,as good poetry will do, the collection allows the reader to trace the development of the thoughts and feelings of some people in our country at a particular time in its poetry. Rich's poetry is a good bellweather of its age. The poetry has an earthiness an immediateness and an accesibility that will make it worth reading even for those who shy away from modern poetry.

This tremendous collection is a threat to cowardly white males everywhere. The incredible variety of utterance and the almost unbelievable courage shown by these poems testifies to the greatness of Adrienne Rich and the paucity of invention of typical white male poets in comparison. This is a truly important book.

I found Rich's poetry to be a bit sloggy in content, with her writing poems about how she doesn't like Beethoven's ninth (after Stravinsky and untold others had already condemned it) and those silly things like the 'floating sonnet'. Still, she is the best of a bad lot, making most other radical feminist lesbian poets look particularly starved for imagination. I managed to find someone to give this book away to. Hope she enjoys it.

Adrienne Rich has to be the most over-rated poet in history. Her work would be completely forgotten if it was judged as poetry, but because she has been adopted as the ideological idol of PC fanatics everywhere, she has become an untouchable icon of the present. Rich is best compared, intellectually, to the literary drudges of Soviet Russia, who extolled the glories of the people for the Communist Party. The diffrence, obviously, is that Rich is not embraced by the State, but by the buddy system that is academic feminism. This volume, complete with the breathless worship -- oh, sorry, critical scholarly attention -- of the editor, is a very fine presentation of what is, for all practical purposes, the work of a transient figure whose prominence is entirely dependent on the current PC state of the American academic establishment. If you wandered to this book because it claims to be poetry, why not skip it and try someone with some soul adn some real poetic talent?

Oct. 5: She is presented with prestigious Lannan Literary Award..for $100,000 for a job in writing,well.

Not merely a wonderful and incredibly courageous poet; oh, no. She is also a brilliant and challenging essayist. Most famous for "The Hermit's Scream", her other prose is absolutely startling in its originality and courage. This book is a threat to white males everywhere. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

This is not a review, but a response to one. To the reviewer who called this book "mediocre" I want to say thanks, not for damning this writer but for being opinionated. I find too many reviwers are blandly admiring in their opinions (as I believe the case is with the first customer's review of this book). And this person also takes care to praise Rich when it is deserved. I have long been intrigued by Rich, her political stance (which seems to supplant her personality and her poetry) and the way it has made her poems. I read this aforementioned review to get an idea of how good or bad the book may be, and to get an idea of how Rich is perceived. I got my answer.

Adrienne Rich's twenty-second book arrives in her seventieth year on the planet and the fiftieth year of a distinguished literary career. To scan the list of publications prefacing her seventeenth collection of poems is to feel small jolts of recognition - one title recalling the moment when your sense of what it meant to be a daughter, wife, mother, self, or mind abruptly veered into dangerous new territory, and another evoking a whole decade of the American century. How bracing her tenacity has been, and how courageous her changes.

In 1951, at the age of twenty-two, Rich received the coveted Yale Younger Poets award for poems W. H. Auden patted on the back because they "are neatly and modestly dressed, speak quietly but do not mumble, [and] respect their elders." Twelve years later her "Snapshots of a Daughter-in-Law" shocked readers with its broken prosodies and epiphanies of women's experience in a sexist society. "Diving Into the Wreck" (1973), "The Dream of a Common Language" (1978), "A Wild Patience Has Taken Me This Far" (1981), "Your Native Land, Your Life" (1993), and "The Dark Fields of the Republic" (1995) have established Rich as an activist writer of impressive reach and power. Despite crippling rheumatoid arthritis and looming despair at the degradations of language and the sociopolitical scene at the millennium, she's still here. Still talking.

And still making waves: two years ago Rich refused the President's prestigious National Medal for the Arts because of what she called, in a speech at the University of Massachusetts, the fracturing of our social contract by "the omnivorously acquisitive few" who preside over "a dwindling middle class and a multiplying number of ill-served, throwaway citizens and workers." While many readers honor Rich's public stance against injustice, some deplore the entrance of such themes into her poetry, arguing that art must transcend the political to be universal and enduring.

In Rich's case, what transcends politics is the voice at the center of her work: an ethical consciousness in the act of resolutely finding a way through terrible difficulties. Refusing to be distracted, she thinks and feels along the labyrinth, fully aware that whatever waits around the bend - barricade, abyss, torturer's knife, knowledge - can kill the spirit. The thing can't be foreseen or forestalled, either, without compromising the whole endeavor. Yet "Look: with all my fear I'm here with you, trying what it / means, to stand fast; what it means to move."

"Midnight Salvage" is muted and elliptical because the experiences of individuals and the forces impinging on them have become harder to pinpoint. They're like water to a fish trying to identify the medium that presses evenly on all sides and supplies all sustenance. The home we live and breathe in is inchoately oppressive - a supersaturated marketplace where events, ideas, rights, governments, peoples, selves, health, oceans, the air, and the words that might tell them true are traded like consumables. Can we know the water we swim in? Rich writes less to galvanize or muster than to awaken.

So the poems read like bulletins from an elusive front, most of them linked in loose bluesy sequences, and punctuated by gaps or paired colons reminiscent of empty boxes - for the disappeared, perhaps, for all the solid assurances that have melted into air. Brilliant glimpses remind us why we want to be awake and alive, like the osprey rising over foggy Tomales Bay and its young "in the windy nest / creaking there in their hunger," and like the older woman's amazed, half-protective-half-exultant memory of her adolescent self:

"What a girl I was then what a body / ready for breaking / open like a lobster / what a little provincial village ' / what a book I made myself / what a quicksilver study ' / What a girl pelican-skimming over fear what a mica lump splitting / into tiny sharp-edged mirrors through which / the sun's eclipse could seem normal ' / eager to sink / to be found / what a mass of swimmy legs"

When "You cannot eat an egg / You don't know where it's been," still, "Unstupefied not unhappy / we braise wild greens and garlic / feed the feral cats / and when the fog's irregular documents break open / scan its fissures for young stars."

One or two catalogs seem facile, a few formal repetitions verge on sentimentality ("I'll find you ' I find you"; "I would look long ' long I'd look"), but these are cavils. An original voice and a scrupulously precise, penetrating mind are still on the urgent prowl, "seizing the light / of creation / giving it back to its creatures // headed under the earth."

Adrienne Rich is one of my favorite poets ever. Everytime I read a new poem, or book by ACR, I learn something new. I take whatever she writes with the utmost seriousness because I know that she is a writer that takes her craft seriously. Rich combines the usual separate domains of poetry and philosophy. Is it "poetic philosophy" or "philosophical poetry"? I go with the latter; her work has the aesthetic beauty of a Wallace Stevens with the philosophical rigor of a writer utterly aware of her place and time. She is a true American writer, that refuses to use the "canonical" American writers only; she also uses Miles Davis, Muriel Rukesyer, John Coltrane and Julia de Burgos as her guides. This book is very good.