A Human Eye: Essays on Art in Society, 1997-2008 [Hardcover]

Adrienne Rich (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 2009

One of America’s most distinguished poets explores the complex relationship between art and social justice.

Over more than three decades Adrienne Rich’s essays have been praised for their lucidity, courage, and range of concerns. In A Human Eye, Rich examines a diverse selection of writings and their place in past and present social disorders and transformations. Beyond literary theories, she explores from many angles how the arts of language have acted on and been shaped by their creators’ worlds.

This powerful new collection includes a stirring response to the anthology Iraqi Poetry Today, a critique of three classic socialist manifestos, and a rereading of The Dead Lecturer, an early volume of poems by LeRoi Jones. Rich engages the impulse to make art that both impels toward and interacts with social change, a theme she also traces through the letters of poets Robert Duncan and Denise Levertov, gay and lesbian politics and poetry, and influential texts on Zionism and the Jewish diaspora.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Humanitarian poet Rich is a live-wire essayist, taking measure here of what she describes as a “permeable membrane between art and society.” The title of her latest collection is from Karl Marx: “The eye has become a human eye only when its object has become a human, social object.” And it is this human connection and vision that Rich searches for in the literature she discusses. Strong writing, Rich believes, is about “how we are with each other,” and she finds this encompassing theme in the work of Muriel Rukeyser, whom Rich admires for her “poetics of historical sensibility”; James Baldwin, who was “uncanny” in his prescience; and June Jordan, who believed humor and pleasure are essential to social change. Rich deep-reads poetry written in the shadow of AIDS and during tyranny and war in Iraq, and argues that we must all be “resistant to dogma.” For all Rich’s shepherding us toward compassion and solidarity with those who suffer violence and injustice, she never ceases to praise the mystery intrinsic to poetry and art. --Donna Seaman

Review

“Rich continues to refuse to separate the artistic from the political, and she articulates in powerful ways how a truly radical political agenda can draw upon an aesthetic vision . . . a vision both unsparing and full of hope.” (San Francisco Chronicle )

“Only Rich can write essays that blend politics and poetry so effortlessly.” (Library Journal )

“For all Rich’s shepherding us toward compassion and solidarity with those who suffer violence and injustice, she never ceases to praise the mystery intrinsic to poetry and art.” (Booklist ) --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 208 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company; 1 edition (April 1, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393070069
• ISBN-13: 978-0393070064
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,388,761 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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