Farewell to a Poet
photo by Ro bert Giard The L.A. Times is reporting that Adrienne Rich has died. Her words, discovered at an early and impressionable age, changed my life. I return to them frequently. They are a gift she has now left behind for us. Read "Diving Into the Wreck" , my favorite American poem of the last 50 years at least. Read "What Kind of Times Are These" . I remember this interview with her from 1994 , which I read so many times in The Progressive that I still have some of her responses memorized. Make sure these books, at the very very least, are on your shelves: The Fact of a Doorframe ; An Atlas of the Difficult World ; On Lies, Secrets, and Silence ; What is Found There . The loss sends me into silence. Perhaps I will be able to say more later. For now, this: I wanted to go somewhere the brain had not yet gone I wanted not to be there so alone. —from "Letters to a Young Poet" in Midnight Salvage by Adrienne Rich (1929-20 1...
