motherhood, as relationship, 81–83
AR’s experience of, 85–98, 101, 111
children’s independence and, 97, 102–3
as earliest source of emotional and physical nurture for both men and women, 165
individuation in, 100–101
self-nurture in, 136, 137–38
sensual pleasure in, 96, 101
suckling in, 96, 101–2, 180
and women’s relationship to other women, 163
“Motherhood and Daughterhood” (Rich), xix, 107–47
mothers, as daughters, 144
“Much Madness is divinest Sense—” (Dickinson, #435), 58
“Muriel Rukeyser: Her Vision” (Rich), 313–18
Murray, Gilbert, 4
“My life had stood—a Loaded Gun—” (Dickinson, #754), 55–57
“Myself was formed—a Carpenter—” (Dickinson, #488), 53
Mzeini Bedouin, 294–95, 296–97
naming, as poetry, 251
National Coalition of Labor Union Women, 158
National Endowment for the Arts, 320, 321
National Medal for the Arts, 319, 320
Native Americans, 282–84
in advertising, 260
genocide of, 322, 328
see also Chicanos; Mexicans
New Deal, arts and, 324
New Haven Colony, 161
Newton, Benjamin, 41
New York World’s Fair (1939), 260, 261
Nicaragua, xviii, 228, 243
Nielsen, Aldon, 276
Nightingale, Florence, 118
norteño, 281–82
North and South (Bishop), 219, 221
“Norther—Key West, A” (Bishop), 381n
Notebook (Lowell), 73
“Notes toward a Supreme Fiction” (Stevens), 383n
“Not How to Write Poetry, But Wherefore” (Rich), 264–69
“Now grapes are plush upon the vines” (Stevens), 272
nuclear family, 232
as institution, 158
“O Breath” (Bishop), 222
“Of Modern Poetry” (Stevens), 274
“Often I Am Permitted to Return to a Meadow” (Duncan), 307
Of Women Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution (Rich), xiii, xiv, xvi–xvii, xix
Olsen, Tillie, 138, 238
“On my volcano grows the Grass” (Dickinson, #1677), 51
“Origin of the Family, The” (Gough), 166–67
“Orion” (Rich), 14–16
otherness, 257, 297
see also outsiderhood
Our Bodies, Ourselves (Boston Women’s Health Book Collective), 374n, 375n
“Out of the cradle, endlessly rocking” (Whitman), 291–92, 308
outsiderhood, 220–21, 222, 224
assimilation and, 221
tokenism and, 227
see also otherness
Pacific Coast, ecology of, 250, 252
Paine, Thomas, 202
Palestine, Israel’s occupation of, 360–61
Palestinians, 297
Paley, Grace, 125
Pankhurst, Christabel, 113
Parker, Katherine, 182, 378n
patriarchal arrogance, 37
in Jane Eyre, 25, 32, 34
patriarchy, patriarchal culture, 3, 19, 22
childless women as threat to, 143
Dickinson and, 46, 47, 67
diminishing creative energy of, 19
female body as viewed in, 105
Judaism and, 216
mother-daughter relationships as restricted by, 134
motherhood and, see motherhood, as institution
origin of, 176–77
women as outsiders in, 150–51, 153, 154
women’s creativity controlled by, 105, 168
women’s education as tool for unlearning teachings of, 151–52, 155–56
women’s education controlled by, 150
women writers and, 227
Pavlić, Ed, 300
Paz, Octavio, 337
Peabody Conservatory, 110
“penis envy,” 181
Perloff, Marjorie, 383n
“Permeable Membrane” (Rich), 347–49
Persephone (Korê), 128–31
personal:
commercialization of, 333–34
community and, 334
politics as, 240, 314–15
“Philosophic View of Reform, A” (Shelley), 352
Pindar, 129, 293, 305–6
“Pink Dog” (Bishop), 226–27
“Planetarium” (Rich), 16–18
Plaskow, Judith, 216
Plath, Aurelia, 119–20
Plath, Sylvia, xvi, 5, 119–20
Poe, Edgar Allan, 108
“Poem Beginning with a Line by Pindar, A” (Duncan), 291, 293–94, 302–8
“Poem out of Childhood” (Rukeyser), 314–15
Poetics, A (Bernstein), 295n–96n
Poetics of Military Occupation, The (Lavie), 294–95
Poetics of Relation, The (Glissant), 294, 366–67
Poetics of Space, The (Bachelard), 29
Poetry, xv, xviii
poetry, poetics:
academic study of, 233, 237–38
as action, 240
by African Americans, 239
connectedness of poet’s daily life with, 239
dismissals of, 361
elitism and, 278
exotic and, 285–86
formalism in, 9, 71
forms and, 268, 293
as imaginative transformation of reality, 12–13
as liberation, 273, 276, 279, 362, 363, 365
male portrayal of women in, 7–8
masculine privilege in, 74–75
movements in, 262–63
naming and, 251
politics and, 19, 228–29, 232–34, 236–40, 242, 251–52, 288, 300, 305n, 336–37, 352–67
power of, 258–59, 279
privilege and, 237
as quest for what might be, 289–90
racism and, 276–77
and reawakening of desires and needs, 255–56
Rukeyser’s definition of, 316, 366
science and, 251–52
silence and, 329–30
as source of knowledge, 230
as subversive, 238–39
supposed indestructibility of, 229
supposed universality of, 231, 234–35
transformative power of, 309, 365
unconscious and, 71–72
use of term, 294, 295–96
white male viewpoint as dominant in, 235, 262
see also art
poetry, writing of, 308–10, 347–48
childbirth compared to, 280
as concretization of experience, 64–65
as daemonic possession, 47, 52–53, 55, 57–58, 280
as homesteading, 282–84
revision in, 73–74
as speaking for others, 65
“Poetry and Experience” (Rich), 71–72
“Poetry and the Forgotten Future” (Rich), 350–67
“Poetry of the Present” (Lawrence), xv
poets:
marginalization of, 228–29
tourism as trap for, 285–86
“Poet’s Education, A” (Rich), 278–84
politics, xviii–xix
internalization of, 13
negative connotations of, 238
as personal, 240, 314–15
poetry and, 19, 228, 232–34, 236–40, 242, 251–52, 288, 300, 305n, 336–37, 352–67
science and, 251–52
sexuality and, 3, 239
pornography, 172
degradation of women in, 169–70, 173
Pound, Ezra, 302, 305, 307
power, 151
erotic and, 309n
female tokenism and, 152–53
gender inequality in, 175
knowledge as, 150
language and, 295, 296
male, char
acteristics of, 166–69
negative associations of, for women, 152
poetry as, 258–59, 279
sexuality and, 158
woman identification as source of, 190
of women, as transformative, 152, 156
Powers of Desire (Snitow, Stansell, and Thompson), 191
pregnancy:
AR’s experience of, 90–91, 92–94, 104–5, 111
as waiting, 104–5
prisons, incarceration, 321, 323, 327, 357
as growth industry, 336
poetry in, 278–79, 361–62
women in, 336
privilege, 151
art and, 287
of literacy, 151
poetry and, 237
and women’s education, 151–52, 153
professions, women in, 153–55
Proper Marriage, A (Lessing), 126–27
prostitution, 172
Protestant Church, 266–67
Psyche, 304–5, 326
psychic extremity, Dickinson’s exploration of, 58–67
“Queen Mab” (Shelley), 352–53
“Questions of Travel” (Bishop), 221
racial injustice, 319
racism, 201, 208, 213–14, 232–33, 241, 257, 259, 267, 275–76, 321, 322
AR’s childhood experiences of, 235–36, 258–59
as destructive to whites, 237
Jews and, 215
language and, 257
poetry and, 276–77
see also whiteness
Radcliffe College, 151
AR at, 204–5
Randall, Margaret, 242
Ransom, John Crowe, 48
rape, 167, 183, 240, 371n
blaming the victim in, 80, 100, 135, 172
marital, 172, 175
as mass terrorism, 81–82
ordinary heterosexual intercourse vs., 171
slavery and, 99–100
Rechy, John, 281
Relation, 296
religious right, 320
“Remarks on the Southern Religion” (Tate), 263n
Reproduction of Mothering, The (Chodorow), 163–64
Republican Party, 320, 335, 356–57
“Reverse cannot befall” (Dickinson, #395), 61
re-vision, 4, 16
revision, of poems, 73–74
Rexroth, Kenneth, 315
Rhea (mother of Demeter), 130
Rich, Arnold, xiv, xv, xvi, 108–9, 267
adolescence of, 199
AR as disappointment to, 112
child-rearing theories of, 111
conflicted Jewish identity of, 199–200, 201–3, 206–10
controlling personality of, 211
death of, 212
female body disliked by, 109
medical career of, 110, 199, 206–7
Rich, Hattie Rice, 199
Rich, Helen, xiv, xv, 108–9, 267
AR’s anger toward, 112–13
as failing to meet husband’s expectations, 110–11, 112
as gentile, 200
musical talent of, 110, 200, 259
Rich, Samuel, 199
Ridge, Lola, 314
right wing, women viewed as property by, 158
Rilke, Rainer Maria, 264, 297–98
Rimbaud, Arthur, 309
Ritsos, Yannis, 353–55
Robinson, Bill “Bojangles,” 260
Robinson, Edwin Arlington, 230–31
Roethke, Theodore, 293
romantic love, as temptation in Jane Eyre, 27, 32, 37
“Romiosini” (Ritsos), 353–55
Room of One’s Own, A (Woolf), 6–7, 369n
Rosenberg, Ethel and Julius, 232
Rossetti, Christina, 8, 52, 54, 57, 143
Rossi, Alice, 109, 159
“Rotted Names” (Rich), 270–77
Rukeyser, Muriel, xii–xiii, xiv, xx, 234, 268, 300, 313–18, 322, 323
critical responses to, 315–16
Jewish identity of, 316, 382n
poetry as defined by, 316, 355
“Rural Reflections” (Rich), 71
Rushdie, Salman, 339
Saari, Rami, 360
sadomasochism, 377n
Sahli, Nancy, 161
Said, Edward, 231
Sand, George, 5
Sandel, Cora, 127
Sandinistas, xviii, 243
San Francisco Chronicle, 361–62
Sanger, Margaret, 94
Sappho, 8, 180
Sartre, Jean-Paul, 133n
Satanic Verses (Rushdie), 339
Schecter, Susan, 377n
School for Scandal, The (Sheridan), 202
science, separation of poetry and politics from, 251–52
Scully, James, 356
“Searching the Land” (Saari), 360
Second Sex, The (Beauvoir), 142n, 215–16
segregation, 201, 208, 214, 229, 263
self-hatred, as temptation in Jane Eyre, 26, 34
self-knowledge:
of Dickinson, 47, 53–54
of women, 4, 13–14, 149–50, 151, 155
women writers and, 5, 47
self-respect, in Jane Eyre, 24, 30, 32–34, 38
self-sacrifice:
love and, 26
as temptation in Jane Eyre, 35–36
Sen, Amartya, 296
September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, 298–99
“Severer Service of myself” (Dickinson, #786), 63–64
Sewall, Richard, 43
sexual equality, in Jane Eyre, 33, 37–38
sexual harassment, 170–72, 241
Sexual Harassment of Working Women: (MacKinnon), 170–72
sexual identity, male domination and, 4–5
sexuality:
as continuum, 192
double-standard for, 25, 31
politics and, 3, 239
power and, 158
sexuality, male, uncontrollability of, as ideology, 174–75
sexuality, women’s experience of:
and ideology of uncontrollable male sex drive, 174–75
male denial of, 166–67
pornography and, 169–70, 173
and servicing of male needs, 173
Shabtai, Aharon, 360
Shakespeare, William, 6, 18, 49
“Shampoo” (Bishop), 223
Shapiro, Karl, 200
Shaw, Bernard, 3
Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 352–53
Signs, 162
silence:
displacement and, 330
poetry and, 329–30
Silvermarie, Sue, 122
Silvermarie, Susa, see Silvermarie, Sue
“Six Meditations in Place of a Lecture” (Rich), 291–310
slavery:
American prosperity and, 322, 328
female, see female sexual slavery
rape and, 99–100
Smedley, Agnes, 181
Smith, Beverly, 210
Smith, Lillian, 144–45
Smith College, 149, 153
Smith-Rosenberg, Carroll, 43–44, 84, 123–24, 163, 183
Snapshots of a Daughter-in-Law (Rich), xvii
“Snapshots of a Daughter-in-Law” (Rich), 14
Snitow, Ann, 191–97
Soares, Lota de, 220
social compact, 320, 323
socialism, 327, 333, 341
society, dialogue between art and, 349
“Solidarity” (Jordan), 286–87
“Songs for a Colored Singer” (Bishop), 224
“Songs of Innocence, The” (Blake), 258
“Sonnet” (Bishop), 223
“Sonnets at Christmas” (Tate), 262–63
Sophia Smith Collection, 149
Sophocles, 129
“Sources” (Rich), xviii, xix
South Africa, apartheid regime of, 355
Spender, Stephen, 264
“Split at the Root” (Rich), xviii, xix, 198–217
splitting, Rukeyser’s abhorrence of, 314–15, 317
Spokeswoman, 162
Stansell, Christine, 191–97
“Statement at a Poetry Reading” (Rich), xix
status quo, female tokenism and, 152–53
Stephen, Julia, 116, 117–18
sterilization, 94
Stevens, Wallace, 8, 232, 254–55, 269, 270–71, 383n
musical language of, 271–72
racism and, 276–77
Sukenick, Lynn, 125
Sula (Morrison), 186–87, 196
Surfacing (Atwood), 131–33
Taggard, Genevieve, 314
Tanning, Dorothea, 337
Tate, Allen, 262–63
technology, 340–41
Temple, Shirley, 260
“The first Day’s Night had come—” (Dickinson, #410), 58–59
Theory of Flight (Rukeyser), xiii, 314–15, 318
“The Province of the Saved” (Dickinson, #539), 65
“There is a Languor of the Life” (Dickinson, #396), 61–62
“The Soul has Bandaged moments—” (Dickinson, #512), 59–60
“The Soul’s distinct Connection” (Dickinson, #974), 65
“This Consciousness that is aware” (Dickinson, #822), 64
Thomas, Dylan, 8
Thompson, Clara, 135
Thompson, Sharon, 191–97
Thoreau, Henry David, 41
Three Guineas (Woolf), 242
tokenism, female, 151
power and, 152–53
as suppressing identification with other women, 153, 154, 156
To the Lighthouse (Woolf), 116–18, 127
tourism, as trap for poetics, 285–86
“Tourism and Promised Lands” (Rich), 285–90
“Tourist and the Town, The” (Rich), 286
Toward a New Psychology of Women (Miller), 162
Triptolemus, 130
Tristan and Isolde, 188
Twentynine Palms, Calif., 270, 274–75
United States:
chauvenism of, 357
dictatorships supported by, 356–57
Upanishads, 115
Vagabond, The (Colette), 189
Valerio, Anita, 243–44
see also Valerio, Max Wolf
Valerio, Max Wolf, 381n
“Vesuvius at Home” (Rich), 39–67
victimization:
blaming and, 80, 100, 135, 172–73
love and, 5
temptation of, in Jane Eyre, 23, 26, 27
of women, 18–19
Vietnam War, 239–40, 268, 318
violence, against women, 158, 162, 163, 167, 241
lesbian existence as escape from, 189
normalization of, 196
pornography and, 169–70
see also female sexual slavery; rape
violence, language and, 257, 259
Virginia, University of, 199
“Voices from the Air” (Rich), 253–56
Wadsworth, Charles, 41, 43
Wakoski, Diane, 5
Waste Land, The (Eliot), 266
Webster, John, 253–54
Weil, Simone, 85
Well of Loneliness, The (Hall), 120–21
“What Does a Woman Need to Know?” (Rich), 149–56
What Is Found There (Rich), xiii, xx
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