the absence of social benefits for mothers," these are among the core social issues Rich believes art must evoke. laws regulating contraception and abortion. But patriarchal culture "has created images of the archetypal Mother which reinforce the conservatism of motherhood and convert it to an energy for the renewal of male power." Art rarely touches the institution of motherhood critically, in full consciousness, and, Rich insists, it must-lest we forget how much of our lived experience is "not of our creation."Īt times I’ve felt as grateful toward Rich’s book as a bone marrow recipient might feel toward a donor, but how have I honored this indebtedness? My own poems might be accused of side-stepping the work of women’s poetry as Rich defines it in Of Woman Born. All of us-mothers and non-mothers-are born of women, therefore all have a connection to motherhood "more fundamental than tribalism or nationalism," Rich says. Rich’s manifesto-almost three decades old and never out of print-looks long and hard into the chasm separating women’s actual (or at least potential) link to maternity, and the "theories, ideals, archetypes, descriptions" patriarchal culture substitutes for this real relationship. Urgency, the spiritual restlessness it engenders, Nothing could be more important or precious than "There are ways of thinking that we don’t know about. In the afterword to Of Woman Born, Adrienne Rich quotes Susan Sontag: "In the interstices of language lie powerful secrets of the
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