Adrienne Rich and the Meaning of Life

"...Don’t ask how I began to love men. Don’t ask how I began to love woman"

(Rich, Dark Fields of the Republic: Poems 1991-1995 pg 64).

That one line shows, for me, the meaning of Adrienne Rich’s poetry. Rich has put all of her heart, soul, and mind into her poetry. She shows one woman journey through life, love, and heartache. It also show what she perceives to be the meaning of life.

The meaning of life. What is it? It is every person reason for living. It is what every man, woman and child holds on to when life gets them down. In ‘Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers’, Rich shows how although Aunt Jennifer is weighed down by a loveless marriage, she can still hold on to life through her "tigers". The tigers "prancing, proud and unafraid" represent Aunt Jennifer’s spirit in the face of living "with ordeals she was mastered by" (Rich, Collected Early Poems 1950 - 1970 pg 4). Rich goes on to show in her other poems that life is made up of a series of changes and that our values and the meanings of life change as time goes on. In 1955, Rich wrote the poem "Living In Sin". In which she shows the meaning of life through a young woman’s day with her boyfriend with whom she was "living in sin". "She had though the studio would keep itself; no dust upon the furniture of love" (Rich, Collected Early Poems 1950 - 1970 pg 94). Rich was showing how even though this young woman thought her live in lover was all she ever wanted, that by the end of a day where he did nothing, she was just a little less in love with him. "By evening she was back in love again, though not so wholly…"(Rich, Collected Early Poems 1950 - 1970 pg 94).

In 1964, Rich wrote "lust... is a jewel a sweet flower and what pure happiness to know all our high-toned questions breed in a lively animal" (Two Songs from Collected Early Poems 1950 - 1970 pg220). This shows how lust can change a woman’s viewpoint on men and society. In Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers, Aunt Jennifer was totally subservient to her husband. Her only outlet being the tigers. Now, Two Songs is showing how a woman’s sexuality can be her own, can lead her to the understanding that she can be her own person, and that woman are precious creatures to be treasured. Also, in the second song, Rich shows her beginning indifference to her sexual relations involving men. She fells it is a "moon-race" and she is a "mere bystander" (Two Songs 220). She also says that "he speaks in a different language", and though she’s "picked up" the language "through culture exchange", it is still a foreign language (Two Songs 220).

And though she has felt an indifference towards men, her feelings for woman are just starting to come into focus. In 1976, she wrote Twenty-one Love Poems. In which she writes "Whatever happens to us, your body will haunt mine - tender, delicate your lovemaking, ... The live, insatiate dance of your nipples in my mouth- your touch on me, firm, protective, searching me out, your strong tongue and slender fingers reaching where I have been waiting years for you in my rose-wet cave" (Rich, The Floating Poem, Unnumbered 32). When Rich says "Two women together is a work nothing in civilization has made simple, two people together is a work heroic in its ordinariness" (XIX 34), she is showing how loving in general, and women in particular, is hard work. She’s showing civilization’s unacceptance of two women falling in love, acting on the love in a sexual way, and how they have to fight for any kind of acceptance. Rich shows how hard it is to live with the secret "dreaming ... of the desire to show you to everyone I love, to move openly together" (II 25). In 1976, when this poem was written, gays, lesbians, and bisexuals lived in fear of social ostracism, ridicule, loss of jobs, injury, and in some cases loss of life. Rich’s poems reflects the joy and pain of being a lesbian during that time. And in some ways, those same problems are here today to a lesser degree.

In That Mouth, she continues the same lesbian theme, but on a more physical level. Rich writes "These are the lips, powerful rudders pushing through groves of kelp, the girl’s terrible, unsweetened taste of the whole ocean, its fathoms: this is that taste" (Rich, An Atlas of a Difficult World: Poems 1988 - 1991 30). Rich is using an ocean metaphor for describing how a woman tastes. She also finishes this poem with "Are you a daughter, are you a son? Strange trade-offs have long been made" (Rich, An Atlas of a Difficult World: Poems 1988 - 1991 30), again mentioning the difficulties of loving the same gender.

In an essay from 1977, Rich writes "A concerted attack is now being waged against homosexuality, by the church, by the media, by all the forces in this country that need a scapegoat to divert attention from racism, poverty, unemployment, and utter, obscene corruption in public life (On Lies, Secrets, and Silence 223). This shows just how many difficulties lesbians, gays, and bisexuals face because they are "two lovers of the same gender" (Rich, Twenty-one Love Poems, XII 31).

Throughout Rich’s life, she has written about things that have affected her life. As a young woman, she loved men and that love was for her the meaning of life. But as she grew older and was disenchanted by that life, she found out the meaning of life for her did not conform to society’s standards. And that even though it would be easier for her to follow the dictates of society, she couldn’t be truly happy unless she followed her heart. That for her is the true meaning of life.

Rich sums they way I fell about her poetry and my bisexuality with the line, "When shall we learn, what should be clear as day, We cannot choose what we are free to love" (Dark Fields of the Republic: Poems 1991-1995, Four: History 65). That for me is the true meaning of life.

Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers

Aunt Jennifer’s tigers pranced across the screen,
Bright topaz denizens of a world of green.
They do not fear the men beneath the tree;
They pace in sleek chivalric certainty.

Aunt Jennifer’s fingers fluttering through her wool
Find even the ivory needle hard to pull.
The massive weight of Uncle’s wedding band
Sits heavily upon Aunt Jennifer’s hand.

When Aunt is dead, her terrified hands will lie
Still ringed with ordeals she was mastered by.
The tigers in the panel that she made
Will go on prancing, proud and unafraid.

(Rich, Collected Early Poems 1950 - 1970 pg 4)

Contributor's Note

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