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December 12, 2005
Rich
We saw Adrienne Rich read at the Jewish Community Center tonight... Green invited me, I invited Barry, and a friend of Green's was also there. Des, unfortunately, was a little poetry'd out from the Anatomical Venus reading earlier this month.
It didn't matter that I can't understand 75% of her poetry without footnotes, because she. Was. Fabulous. It quietly exuded from her, this woman born the same year as my grandmother, who entered and exited the stage with the aid of a bright red walker.
She was well spoken and refined, very warm—not at all arrogant or pretentious—and at the same time a very powerful voice of feminism.
And I'm just amazed at lines like
...all the old knives
that have rusted in my back, I drive in yours
Probably she wrote that when she was much younger, but my only context for it is the woman I experienced tonight.
I love this quote:
Women have been the truly active people in all cultures, without whom human society would long ago have perished, though our activity has most often been on the behalf of men and children.
I can't argue with that. I wrote my grandma a thank you note that will go out in the mail tomorrow.
Posted by Josh A. at December 12, 2005 11:05 PM