The Dream of a Common Language - Adrienne Rich

Advantages: interesting, not too long
Disadvantages: may appeal to only a selective audience

...essay on Sylvia Plath's poetry. The two female poets, along with Anne Sexton - are often closely associated, so it wasn't really surprising that I should come across her name frequently when I was reading literary criticism. In common with Plath, Adrienne Rich is an American poet; born in Baltimore, Maryland in 1929. I chose to read "The Dream of a Common Language" because it is a well-known collection of her poems from 1974-1977. It is then split ...
...and women's culture in general. The first section of her book; "Power" is quite striking. The opening poem of the book describes how Marie Curie's 'power', the scientific experiments she carried out, were the very thing that killed her eventually as she suffered radiation poisoning. Rich depicts the scene thus: "denying / her wounds came from the same source as her power". These are rather touching words and aptly describe the situation. I also ... Read review