On Lies, Secrets and Silence: Selected Prose, 1966-1978 Book

Adrienne Rich was a fierce poet, but also an academic, and this is an academic collection. It includes lectures to students, speeches to administrators, presentations to commissions, articles, essays, reviews and columns. At times it was a bit too academic for a general reader like me, but what brilliance.

She spoke from experience, of patriarchy and feminism, motherhood and teaching. But the parts I enjoyed most were when she applied her knowledge and experience to literary analysis.

On Wuthering Heights:
"The bond between Catherine and Heathcliff is the archetypal bond between the split fragments of the psyche, the masculine and feminine elements ripped apart and longing for reunion."

On Jane Eyre:
"Coming to her husband in economic independence and by her free-choice, Jane can become a wife without sacrificing a grain of her Jane Eyre-ity."

On Poetry:
"But poems are like dreams: in them you put what you don't know you know."

My favorite was her essay "Vesuvius at Home: The Power of Emily Dickinson," from a 1975 Brandeis University lecture. Understanding Dickinson from Rich's intellectual-feminist-poet point of view is a treat no Dickinson fan should miss. A revelation.

For those who think this collection may be dated, I offer this:
"One of the most powerful social and political catalysts of the past decade has been the speaking of women with other women, the telling of our secrets, the comparing of wounds and the sharing of words. This hearing and saying of women has been able to break many a silence and taboo; literally to transform forever the way we see."

The "past decade" referenced was 50 years ago, but it sounds remarkably like a certain movement going on right now. As we know, silences continue, and there are many more secrets we must go on sharing in order to move the transformation forward. We still have much to learn from Adrienne Rich.