We lost a great poet this week: a powerful voice of challenging eloquence, a fierce spirit and force for justice in the world. Years ago, I saw her speak at the school where I currently teach, long before I knew I would teach there, and it was simply wonderful. She signed my copy of Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution
“Burning Oneself Out”
We can look into the stove tonight
as into a mirror, yes,
the serrated log, the yellow-blue gaseous core
the crimson-flittered grey ash, yes.
I know inside my eyelids
and underneath my skin
Time takes hold of us like a draft
upward, drawing at the heats
in the belly, in the brain
You told me of setting your hand
into the print of a long-dead Indian
and for a moment, I knew that hand,
that print, that rock,
the sun producing powerful dreams
A word can do this
or, as tonight, the mirror of the fire
of my mind, burning as if it could go on
burning itself, burning down
feeding on everything
till there is nothing in life
that has not fed that fire
Related articles
- Adrienne Rich, 1929-2012 (feministphilosophers.wordpress.com)
- “For the Dead” – Adrienne Rich (biblioklept.org)
, for example. This is great especially if you are unfamiliar with the style of music or with certain songs, and can really enrich your reading experience. As far as the classroom goes, I would see this more as an extra credit project, as it doesn’t really address literary elements, but it could prove that a student did a close enough reading of the book to catch every song reference. One recent popular YA novel, 
, would lend itself really well to an assignment like this.
(review coming soon). One playlist would be of the songs that are mentioned as inspiring Dave Grohl as a musician, which run the gamut from the Beatles to Metallica to Fugazi, and others might be songs by Dave himself in his assorted bands: Nirvana, Foo Fighters, Them Crooked Vultures, Queens of the Stone Age, etc. The other would be a playlist of all the songs mentioned in 
, which would be a massive undertaking, but such fun!
; I read it at least three times, convinced that at some point, I would understand why this was the great American novel I kept reading about, the one that everybody loved so much. And I hated it! I thought Holden was so whiny, and I just couldn’t understand what was going on with him, why he kept getting kicked out of school and wandering around being slightly creepy in New York City. I thought he was boring, and that the whole book was stupid.
and 
are modern books set primarily in New York City. By modern, I mean not only that they take place in the very recent past, but also that both employ specifically modern techniques, shifting narratives that move from character to character and incorporating themes of modern society into the themes of the novel. If you’ve read much about Goon Squad, for example, you know that there is an entire chapter done in 
(my review 
(the latter of which I 
