I never got to meet or speak with Adrienne Rich. Or Alice Walker for that matter. But there's still time with Alice. What I remember most about Adrienne was her willingness to struggle with whiteness and the unearned power that defines and sustains it, and her lesbian-feminist brilliance in analysing heterosexuality as a socially and politically compulsory condition for women, not a natural one.
Below is the video featuring Alice Walker. Below that is a transcript of the conversation.
To link to any of this, please click here:
http://www.democracynow.org/2012/3/30/adrienne_rich_1929_2012_alice_walker
Adrienne Cecile Rich (May
16, 1929 – March 27, 2012) was an American poet, essayist and feminist.
She has been called "one of the most widely read and influential poets
of the second half of the 20th century", and was credited with bringing
"the oppression of women and lesbians to the forefront of poetic
discourse.
In 1997, Adrienne Rich famously declined to accept the National Medal of
Arts in a protest against the Clinton administration, writing that art "means nothing if it simply decorates the dinner table of power which holds it hostage."
Rich died on March 27, 2012, at the age of 82 in her Santa Cruz, California home.
PHOTO: Audre Lorde, Meridel Lesueur, Adrienne Rich 1980 by K. Kendall
"They led a writing workshop together in Austin, Texas. I was in it, and they let me take this picture of them."
Adrienne Rich (1929-2012): Alice Walker & Frances Goldin on the Life of the Legendary Poet & Activist
by Democracy Now! — March 30, 2012
The legendary poet, essayist and feminist Adrienne Rich, who died on
Tuesday at the age of 82, was one of the most celebrated poets of the
last half-century and a lifelong advocate for women, gay and lesbian
rights, peace and racial justice. Rich drew widespread acclaim for her
many volumes of poetry and prose, which brought the oppression of women
and lesbians into the public spotlight. She was a key figure in the
women’s movement and an uncompromising critic of the powerful. In 1997,
Rich famously declined to accept the National Medal of Arts in a protest
against the Clinton administration, writing that art "means nothing if
it simply decorates the dinner table of power which holds it hostage."
We remember Rich’s life with Pulitzer Prize-winning author Alice Walker
and Rich’s literary agent Frances Goldin.
Guests:
Alice Walker, Pulitzer Prize-winning author,
poet and activist. When Adrienne Rich was awarded the 1973 National Book
Award, she refused to accept the award alone. She appeared onstage with
poets Audre Lorde and Alice Walker, and the three accepted the award on
behalf of all women.
Frances Goldin, Adrienne Rich’s longtime literary agent and friend.
This transcript is available free of charge. However, donations help Democracy Now! provide closed captioning for the deaf and hard of hearing on the TV broadcast. Thank you for your generous contribution.
Transcript:
JUAN GONZALEZ: The legendary poet, essayist and
feminist Adrienne Rich died on Tuesday at the age of 82. Rich was one of
the most celebrated poets of the last half-century and a lifelong
advocate for women, gay and lesbian rights, peace and racial justice.
Rich drew widespread acclaim for her many volumes of poetry and prose,
which brought the oppression of women and lesbians into the public
spotlight. She was a key figure in the women’s movement and an
uncompromising critic of the powerful. Rich won numerous awards and
honors, including the National Book Award for the 1973 collection Diving into the Wreck.
Refusing to accept the award alone, she appeared onstage with poets
Audre Lorde and Alice Walker, and the three accepted the award on behalf
of all women.
AMY GOODMAN: In 1997, Adrienne Rich famously
declined to accept the National Medal of Arts in a protest against the
Clinton administration, writing that art, quote, "means nothing if it
simply decorates the dinner table of power which holds it hostage."
In a moment, we’ll be joined by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Alice
Walker and Rich’s literary agent Frances Goldin. But first we’re going
to go to Adrienne Rich herself, reading her poem "What Kind of Times Are
These."
ADRIENNE RICH: There’s a place between two stands of trees where the grass grows uphill
and the old revolutionary road breaks off into shadows
near a meeting-house abandoned by the persecuted
who disappeared into those shadows.
I’ve walked there picking mushrooms at the edge of dread, but don’t be fooled
this isn’t a Russian poem, this is not somewhere else but here,
our country moving closer to its own truth and dread,
its own ways of making people disappear.
I won’t tell you where the place is, the dark mesh of the woods
meeting the unmarked strip of light—
ghost-ridden crossroads, leafmold paradise:
I know already who wants to buy it, sell it, make it disappear.
And I won’t tell you where it is, so why do I tell you
anything? Because you still listen, because in times like these
to have you listen at all, it’s necessary
to talk about trees.
AMY GOODMAN: That was Adrienne Rich reading her
poetry. She died on Tuesday at the age of 82. Alice Walker, as well as
Frances Goldin, her literary agent, are here to talk about her life.
Alice Walker, your thoughts about Adrienne?
ALICE WALKER: Well, it was very interesting. She and
I saw each other infrequently and almost always by accident, so it was
quite magical. We would be sometimes in an elevator together, and she
would have come from one part of the country and me from somewhere else,
and there we’d be. Or we’d show up at a movie, and there she’d be, and
there I’d be. She was very close to a friend of mine, June Jordan, and
so I got to know more about her through June, and also, of course,
through her poetry, which was very meaningful to me. And my sense of
her, the thing that I most loved, was her integrity. She lived exactly
what she said. And this was so rare and so beautiful. And we will miss
her.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about the National Book Award in 1973 that she won for Diving into the Wreck that she insisted that you, Alice, and Audre Lorde accept the award with her on stage? Talk about that moment. Where were you?
ALICE WALKER: I was in Mississippi. I was, you know,
fighting the good fight down there. But anyway, what happened was that
we were all three nominated for this award. And we understood that we
were living under apartheid and segregation and, you know, all of that,
and that under such a system, which favored white people, she would get
the award. We knew that. And so, we decided, before anybody—anything was
announced, that we would not accept being ranked, and we would not
accept the racism implicit in an award that would go to someone—you
know, she was a great poet, but it would go to her also because she was a
white person. And to her immense credit, she had no desire to be
honored as we would be dishonored. And so, we got together. Audre called
me in Mississippi, and we chatted about it, and Adrienne. And so, we
decided that we could only accept an award so suspicious if we accepted
it in the name of all women and indicate by that action that we
understood that women were not honored in the arts and elsewhere.
JUAN GONZALEZ: And Frances, you represented her for
many years. Talk to us about how you first came to know her and what
kind of person she was, and especially this issue of her stances on
principle and social justice.
FRANCES GOLDIN: I met her at a dinner. The gay and
lesbian rights groups had a dinner the night before, every year, when
the publishing world came together in various countries—cities in the
country. And I was sitting next to her and met her for the first time at
that dinner. And we bonded, because we had similar politics, and we had
wanted to meet each other for some time. And when the meeting was over,
I said to her, "Can I hug you?" And she said, "It would be a pleasure."
And we hugged. And then I said, "Well, if we can hug, can I kiss you?"
And she said, "I would love to." And we left, and that happened.
And then I really campaigned for a couple of years to be able to
represent her. And I remember taking a camera on a city bus, because
they had on the billboards of the buses the poet of the month. And once,
it was Adrienne. And so, I took a picture of that and sent it to her
and said, "Millions of people in New York know about you because you
were on the bus this morning." And, you know, I just courted her with
anything I could think of.
And then, one day, she called and said, "I need some help. My
publisher, Norton, has two offers from England, and I don’t know which
one to take." So I said, "Well, just sit there, and don’t go away from
your phone." And I called my British agent, because I certainly didn’t
know which was the better of the two. And he called her, and she
explained it, and he told her which was the best publisher for her. And
she called back and said, "He was so wonderful, and he didn’t take any
money, and he wouldn’t charge me." And I said, "Well, of course not. It
was just a favor." And she said, "Well, then, can you represent the
book?" And I said, "How can I? You signed a contract. And if I called
with a question about it, they would hang up on me, because I didn’t
agent this book." And she said, "Well, can you do my next one?" And I
said, "Does night follow day?" And we became agent and author. And it’s
been 25 years.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to go back to that moment in
1997 when Adrienne Rich refused the National Medal for the Arts to
protest the growing concentration of power in fewer and fewer hands.
Adrienne Rich informed the Clinton administration of her decision in a
July 3rd letter to Jane Alexander, the chair of the National Endowment
for the Arts at the time, which administers the awards. Adrienne Rich appeared on Democracy Now! soon afterwards, and she read her letter.
ADRIENNE RICH: "Dear Jane Alexander,
“I just spoke with a young man from your office, who informed me that
I had been chosen to be one of twelve recipients of the National Medal
for the Arts at a ceremony at the White House in the fall. I told him at
once that I could not accept such an award from President Clinton or
this White House because the very meaning of art, as I understand it, is
incompatible with the cynical politics of this administration. I want
to clarify to you what I meant by my refusal.
“Anyone familiar with my work from the early Sixties on knows that I
believe in art’s social presence—as breaker of official silences, as
voice for those whose voices are disregarded, and as a human birthright.
In my lifetime I have seen the space for the arts opened by movements
for social justice, the power of art to break despair. Over the past two
decades I have witnessed the increasingly brutal impact of racial and
economic injustice in our country.
“There is no simple formula for the relationship of art to justice.
But I do know that art—in my own case the art of poetry—means nothing if
it simply decorates the dinner table of power which holds it hostage.
The radical disparities of wealth and power in America are widening at a
devastating rate. A President cannot meaningfully honor certain token
artists while the people at large are so dishonored. I know you have
been engaged in a serious and disheartening struggle to save government
funding for the arts, against those whose fear and suspicion of art is
nakedly repressive. In the end, I don’t think we can separate art from
overall human dignity and hope. My concern for my country is
inextricable from my concerns as an artist. I could not participate in a
ritual which would feel so hypocritical to me.
"Sincerely,
Adrienne Rich"
AMY GOODMAN: Adrienne Rich, reading on Democracy Now!
the letter she wrote to the actress Jane Alexander, who was then the
head of the National Endowment for the Arts, rejecting the 1997 medal,
the 1997 National Medal for the Arts. Alice Walker, your final thoughts
on Adrienne Rich?
ALICE WALKER: I think that that letter demonstrates
that integrity that she had that I so admired. And I think her legacy
for all of us is to continue to believe in the power of art, especially
in the power of poetry, and to keep moving and not to be dissuaded, not
to be discouraged, but to take heart from a woman who lived for 82 years
giving her very best, growing out of every shell that society attempted
to force her into to become this really amazing figure of inspiration
and hope and love.
AMY GOODMAN: Alice Walker, we want to thank you for
being with us, Pulitzer Prize-winning author and activist. Frances
Goldin, Adrienne Rich’s agent and friend. And we will post you reading,
Frances, Adrienne’s letter to you on our website at democracynow.org.
