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A Valediction Forbidding Mourning by Adrienne Rich

5/17/2008 10:36:40 AM
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Adrienne Rich
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A Valediction Forbidding Mourning
 
  My swirling wants. Your frozen lips.
The grammar turned and attacked me.
Themes, written under duress.
Emptiness of the notations.

They gave me a drug that slowed the healing of wounds.

I want you to see this before I leave:
the experience of repetition as death
the failure of criticism to locate the pain
the poster in the bus that said:
my bleeding is under control

A red plant in a cemetary of plastic wreaths.

A last attempt: the language is a dialect called metaphor.
These images go unglossed: hair, glacier, flashlight.
When I think of a landscape I am thinking of a time.
When I talk of taking a trip I mean forever.
I could say: those mountains have a meaning
but further than that I could not say.

To do something very common, in my own way.

Adrienne Rich


Read poems about / on: metaphor, hair, red, pain, death, time

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Comments about this poem (A Valediction Forbidding Mourning by Adrienne Rich)  more comments >>
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Lime and Tequila with a Splash of Pineapple (1/22/2008 8:49:00 PM)
I had a few problems appreciating the beginning of this poem, but the ending is so powerful. So I made a point of reading it several times and focusing my mind (a rare event, being a bit scatterbrained) . And I find I do appreciate this poem in its entirety, though, I still consider the ending with that magnificent final line rather more spectacular.

Peace,

L&T
Hema Kadir (12/31/2007 4:18:00 AM)
To do something very common, in my own way........said in a special deep manner here........hems

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5/17/2008 10:36:40 AM. You Are Here: A Valediction Forbidding Mourning by Adrienne Rich

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