On the Job

I’m in the back of Dishes, on 45th off Fifth, on my lunch hour. The Fact of a Doorframe is open on the table, and I’m reading to write, the way I might read to write a poem, although now it is this tribute that I want, although I’m writing this tribute as if it were a poem, a poem to Adrienne. I’m reading alone as one always reads the poem alone, yet the poem is bringing me back into the poem, is bringing me back into the community of all who would read the poem, though it may be that at any moment we may feel we can do nothing about our lives. In “Letters to a Young Poet” she says:

if a woman as vivid as any artist

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From the Spring 2006 Issue

“Will, Change, and Power in the Poetry of Adrienne Rich” is part of the Spring 2006 issue of Virginia Quarterly Review, which also features essays, fiction, poetry, book reviews, and humor. Subscribe today for just $32.

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