Tonight No Poetry Will Serve: Poems 2007-2010 [Hardcover]

Adrienne Rich (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 17, 2011

Relationships—partings/reconciliations, solidarities/ruptures, trust/betrayal, exposure/withdrawal—are the deep fabric of this forceful work.

In the intimate address of "Axel Avákar," the black humor of "Quarto," and the underground journey of "Powers of Recuperation," compressed lyrics flash among larger scenarios where images, dialogues, blues, and song spiral into political visions. Adrienne Rich has said, "I believe almost everything I know, have come to understand, is somewhere in this book."

from "Ballade of the Poverties"
     There's the poverty of wages wired for the funeral you
     Can't get to the poverty of bodies lying unburied
     There's the poverty of labor offered silently on the curb
     The poverty of yard sale scrapings spread
     And rejected the poverty of eviction, wedding bed out on street
     Prince let me tell you who will never learn through words
     There are poverties and there are poverties.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Rich writes, “I believe almost everything I know, have come to understand, is somewhere in this book.” The critically acclaimed poet of 30 books of poetry and prose fills her latest retrospective collection with poems that express an intimate understanding of life, death, and resilience with recurring images of ice, blood, and bodies. The opening poem, “Waiting for Rain, for Music,” dives in with “waiting for tomorrow / long after tomorrow / should’ve come.” This motif of regret builds to resignation in “From Sickbed Shores,” the book’s central poem, which asks, “what is it anyway to exist as / matter to / matter?” While writing of chronic illness, Rich offers wordplay redolent of her caustic wit and black humor and reminiscent of Plath. “Ballade of the Poverties,” a Prévert-like poem deviating in style from the book’s short-line, at times difficult, poems, speaks to timeless themes of injustice and ignorance and ends with the narrator offering the reader a mirror. Rich’s poetry itself is a mirror, reflecting the truths about humanity this discerning poet has come to understand. --Katharine Fronk

Review

“Rich is one of the greatest American poets of the past half century...attested to both by the extraordinary power of her poems and by the laurels she's racked up.... the events of our blood-dimmed decade have afforded Rich a subject for some of her strongest material.” (Sara Marcus - San Francisco Chronicle )

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 89 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company; First Edition edition (January 17, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393079678
• ISBN-13: 978-0393079678
• Product Dimensions: 6.3 x 0.6 x 8.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #680,515 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing & Difficult June 13, 2012

By Book Lovers' Reviewer

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

Rich here is experimental, amazing, inspirational, and difficult, for those interested in living politically aware in our era of greed. Rich still writes in a fragmented style and still thinks through emotion and ideas at the same time. While the title says No Poetry Will Serve, here poetry's power expresses, enlightens and acts as a balm (through insight and inventive zest). There are some weaker sections. For those who have not read Rich recently, Midnight Salvage (1995) and Telephone Ringing in the Labyrinth (2007) are stronger collections, and maybe more helpful in understanding her point of view.