Telephone Ringing in the Labyrinth: Poems (2004-2006)
Adrienne Rich W W Norton, 112pp, £14.99
Adrienne Rich is a poet closely linked with a radical, some might say dated, form of Seventies feminism. Yet the view that her poetic achievements are tied to a specific, immutable ideology is highly reductive, as this new collection shows.
Although it is less thematically unified than previous books, Rich shows a grasp of language and form here that is still impressive. We are offered extended, elliptical poems on topics such as the imprisonment of Antonio Gramsci and more accessible, colloquial works such as “Rhyme”. Powerful elegies sit next to angry political verse: “This Is Not the Room” takes its inspiration from a speech by Dick Cheney and offers a punchy, minimalist indictment of the US government’s use of torture.
Rich is demanding without being deliberately obtuse, and profoundly yet subtly engaged with politics. She is careful to maintain a scrupulous self-awareness that prevents even her most impassioned works from becoming didactic. Yet she has faith in poetry’s ability to prompt personal and political change. As one of the collection’s epigraphs, she chooses a quotation reminding us that, in poetry, “the I is a dramatic I”; notably, she adds to this that “so, unless otherwise indicated, is the You”.
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