The School Among the Ruins: Poems 2000-2004 (Paperback)

~ Adrienne Rich (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

*Starred Review* Trust Rich, a clarion poet of conscience, to get the fractured timbre of the times just right in a collection of vigorous lyric poems about the first four years of the twenty-first century, a period of terror, war, corporate imperialism, outrageous lies, and miasmal inarticulateness. A moment in history, Rich avers, in arresting imagery and flinty syntax, in which language has been processed into banality just like so much of the American landscape. Forthright, precise, witty, and keenly attuned to complacency, reluctance, and fear, Rich fights back with exhilaratingly choreographed poems about inane, high-pitched public cell-phone conversations, television's numbing soundtrack, the crude oversimplification and commercialization of public discourse, and the "viral / spread of social impotence producing social silence." Rich also writes piercingly, and inevitably, of war, most poignantly in the powerful title poem, in which a courageous teacher in a besieged city tells his students, "Don't let your faces turn to stone / Don't stop asking me why." Similarly, Rich tells readers not to give up hope and not to remain silent, because truth flows unabated behind the facade of spin and babble, and it will prevail. Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review

One of a handful of major American poets whose every new work is a cause for excitement…stunning. -- Library Journal

This is Rich's best work in years. … Demonstrates why Rich is considered a major poet. -- Christian Science Monitor

This kind of writing is hard work … but we are fortunate to have Rich in the trenches. -- Sarah Goodyear, Time Out New York

Whether lamenting…modern culture or…the war on terror, Rich remains a poet of impeccable principle and unwavering conscience. -- San Francisco Weekly

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Product Details

• Paperback: 112 pages
• Publisher: W.W. Norton & Co. (January 17, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393327558
• ISBN-13: 978-0393327557
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.4 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #479,097 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A pearl cast before at least one swine, October 14, 2006

By	Dorothy Parker's aunt - See all my reviews

No greater poet exists. The School Among the Ruins is her best work in years--she is at the top of her game. This is taut, lyric poetry. Beautiful in form and thought. And, as always with Rich, informed by excellent ethics and motives. She is a poet who has successfully challenged social injustice with her poetry. She doesn't have to justify herself to anyone--certainly not the reviewer from Ohio--but I feel I must.

5.0 out of 5 stars Rich continues to surprise..., August 21, 2008

By	Raymond L. Heinrich (TX USA) - See all my reviews

In 1988 my ardent feminist girlfriend gave me a copy of "The Fact of a Doorframe" (the 1984 edition) and told me not to speak to her again until I finished reading it. This seemed an odd request, but since I really wanted to speak to her again, I read it. Rich's uncompromising passion not only moved me; it started a process that changed my view of the world and ended up changing my life. I guess you should expect that from a writer this powerful. She never fails to surprise me. This book is no exception.

P.S. I particularly love "Your Native Land, Your Life", "The Dream of a Common Language", and "What is Found There". ("What is Found There" is supposed to be essays and letters but it seems like poetry to me.)

11 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars There's so much better out there..., April 27, 2005

By	Robert P. Beveridge "xterminal" (Cleveland, OH) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The School Among the Ruins: Poems 2000-2004 (Hardcover)

Adrienne Rich, The School Among the Ruins (Norton, 2004)

One of the blurbs on the jacket of Adrienne Rich's latest book proclaims Rich one of the poets whose every new book is cause for excitement. I can think of at least an hundred others for whom that should be true, and Rich is not one of them, especially if The School Among the Ruins is anything to go by.

It's obvious from some of the pieces here that Rich does know, or at least remember, that image should be the heart of all poetry; in the rest, however, she seems to have completely forgotten that fact, descending to the realm of political prose broken up into little lines to make it artistic. Little lines do not make poetry. Image makes poetry, and there is precious little of it to be found here. You'd be better off turning to one of the books by one of those poets whose every new work should be cause for excitement (Charles Simic, Ira Sadoff, Ted Kooser, Rochelle Theo Pienn, Debra Allbery, Heather McHugh, Elizabeth Willis, Peter Gizzi, and Dzvinia Orlowsky all come to mind very quickly), leaving this for once you've exhausted the rest of your local library's new releases shelf for poetry. **