What Is Found There: Notebooks on Poetry and Politics Book

A beautiful reminder to aspiring poets and those who read poetry. Adrienne Rich's book dismantles common conceptions of poetry as merely "resting on the given" and revitalizes poetry's connection to the "multi-various shadings of human life" and "the heartbeat, memories, images of strangers."

She introduces the poet as a kind of global citizen, that one should "track their own desire" as a found object and communicate this to the world, however that desire is able to manifest poetically. For Rich, it is important that the poet gives voice to one's own set of experiences' experiences shaped by one's class, race, gender and overall situation within the world. I loved the examples throughout: Phillis Wheatley, June Jordan, Francisco X. Alcaron.

The notebooks are approachable and take you through the experience of being a poet in America, faced with everything that we take for granted in poetry and in our lives. The text made me increasingly aware that poetry for aesthetic purposes is really not enough, that for some poetry serves as sustenance rather than luxury. And not to take the canon for granted, filled with individuals that give us only a certain kind of perspective.

A new conception of poetry arises: the poet interweaves the politics into the poetry; the poet challenges the politics that inherently exist within poetry as a system. Poetry and politics are intertwined and, together, create a conception of poetry as an active form of resistance, witness, and art.

What a vocation! I wish I had read this sooner.