Essays on Poets Page 4

Stevie Smith’s “Not Waving but Drowning” and Adrienne Rich’s “Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers” are similar in that both poems’ characters have lived their lives with regret and sorrow. Neither of their lives were lived to the fullest and as death approaches, the question of, “what could have been?” remains forever unanswered. Upon first reading, Stevie Smith’s…

Adrienne Rich’s essay “Split at the Root: An Essay on Jewish Identity” explores her personal journey as a mixed Jewish-Gentile individual in a predominantly non-Jewish society. She discusses the pressure to hide one’s true identity and conform to societal norms, focusing on how religion, ethnicity, and social characteristics are used as means of suppression. Rich…

Revision is a type of evolution. For Adrienne Richs life and poems this is true. Three of her poems, Aunt Jennifers Tigers, Snapshots of a Daughter-In-Law, and Planetarium were written at different spans of her life. Each poem is reflective of the era of its conception. The poems evolve as Richs education and culture change….

Adrienne Rich, a renowned confessional poet, uses a unique structural style in her poem, Storm Warnings, to reveal both literal and metaphorical meanings. The poem’s structure mirrors the external storm occurring outside and allows the speaker to explore her internal conflict in an organized manner. As the speaker becomes aware of the approaching storm, she…

In her essay “Taking Women Students Seriously,” Adrienne Rich discusses the historical struggle for gender equality. While it may seem that there has been progress in achieving gender equality, with men taking on more household responsibilities and women pursuing careers outside of the home, this perception might not accurately reflect the reality. Despite ambitious women…

Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers, by Adrienne Rich, is about a woman struggling to deal with her oppressive and constrained lifestyle, and as a way of expressing and freeing herself, she turns to sewing memorable works of art. This is not the poet, Adrienne Riche, first poem that deals with issues women face. She felt dominated by…

Adrienne Rich was an American poet, essayist, and feminist. She was called one of the most widely read and influential poets of the second half of the 20th century, by one of her many admirers Cary Nelson, in the Anthology of Modern American Poetry. She was born into an era in which women were looked…

In life, there are numerous expectations. Individuals make choices in the hopes of achieving the best outcome and desiring that those choices lead to happiness. Occasionally, the outcomes of these choices do not align with what was originally intended. In Adrienne Rich’s poem “Living in Sin,” a woman discovers that the romanticized notion of love…

These are all words I have heard and continue to hear in my life. These are all words that relate to me, just in an extremely derogatory way. Being gay is something that is becoming more and more acceptable in our society, but living as a lesbian proves an everyday struggle for me and one…

Aunt Jennifer’s tigers are pictures that she is sewing into a tapestry. The tapestry could be one of those quilts that you can hang on the wall, or curtains. The details that are associated with her hands are being terrified, but lying still, they flutter through the wool and they are weighed down with the…