A moment of silence

for Adrienne Rich. I didn't bring her poems with me this time; I may not have brought them to Cambridge either, two years ago. But for a long time they were a touchstone for me, even after the Twenty-One Love Poems stopped being my favourite love poems. The poems were tender, tough, practical, rueful, passionate; they were a lesson in living honesty, in political and poetic truth. There is an Adrienne Rich phase, isn't there, like a Sylvia Plath phase? Except that a Plath phase is inward-looking and angst-ridden (and brings to mind Julian Barnes' description of a teenager as someone part willing, part consenting and part chosen for), whereas an Adrienne Rich phase could have stimulated greater thought and action on behalf of others. Could have. But still; a moment of respect.