Arts of the Possible: Essays and Conversations (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780393323122)

These essays trace a distinguished writer's engagement with her time, her arguments with herself and others. "I am a poet who knows the social power of poetry, a United States citizen who knows herself irrevocably tangled in her society's hopes, arrogance, and despair," Adrienne Rich writes. The essays in Arts of the Possible search for possibilities beyond a compromised, degraded system, seeking to imagine something else. They call on the fluidity of the imagination, from poetic vision to social justice, from the badlands of political demoralization to an art that might wound, that may open scars when engaged in its work, but will finally suture and not tear apart. This volume collects Rich's essays from the last decade of the twentieth century, including four earlier essays, as well as several conversations that go further than the usual interview. Also included is her essay explaining her reasons for declining the National Medal for the Arts. "The work is inspired and inspiring."--Alicia Ostriker "[S]o clear and clean and thorough. I learn from her again and again."--Grace Paley

Author: Adrienne Cecile Rich
ISBN-10: 0393323129
ISBN-13: 9780393323122
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Language: English
Published: 05/01/2002
Pages: 204
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.53lbs
Size: 8.32h x 5.58w x 0.56d

Review Citation(s):
Lambda Book Report 05/01/2002 pg. 30