Adrienne Rich ‘The Fact of a Doorframe” Book 2

Name ______http://bhsvceenglish.wikispaces.com/home Style Lyric

What happens?

Count the syllables per line, is there a metre?

Number of stanzas/lines per stanza

Are the stanzas consistent?

Rhyming pattern

Is the rhyming pattern consistent?

Things to note A doorframe is the most stable part of a house The title is part of the first line- what’s the effect? The first two lines are solid, the next two she is more fragile The last 4 lines of stanza 1 go back to ancient traditions. Makeba was a South African singer who was anti- apartheid, she moved her head back and forward during singing. The suggestion is that people move rhythmically during suffering, it helps during difficult times. Middle stanza, google ‘The Goose Girl’ a Grimm fairytale. The horses head (female) provides comfort during suffering Assonance of Makeba and Falada Final stanza, link of poetry and doorway, each has 3 words to describe them, both lists would fit for poetry. Frame and arcane link the ideas. Last 4 lines return to present Earth trembles, it is separate to poet’s ideas, but part of the poets ideas. In an earthquake, the doorway is the safest part of the house. Last 2 images, burning and grain- warmth and nourishment, grain is a pun, grain of wood, wheat grain Copy quotes from the poem that focus on

Solidity V uncertainty

Stories as a means of making sense of life

Ordinary things as extraordinary

Understanding that the meaning of words is dependent on cultural setting Twenty-One Love Poems This is a suit of 22 poems (there is an un-numbered poem between 14 and 15) that each encapsulate a different moment in place and time in women’s experience. They are both about the poet’s personal experience of love and sexuality as about the larger issues that face women as a whole. Although these poems do not have the formal structure of sonnets, they read like a sequence of sonnets. Usually a sequence of sonnets explores a unifying theme, but each individual poem is designed also as a discrete entity. In this way, the reader can see themes building across Rich’s sequence of poems, but each stands on its own. Individual sonnets also explore contrasting or juxtaposition of ideas. Here, Rich is contrasting the gentle and nurturing environment of women’s love for each other (whether sexual, familial or platonic) with the harsh external world or with their experience of men, which is often negative and judgemental.

Twenty One Love Poems V Style

What happens?

Count the syllables per line, is there a metre?

What are some good words to describe the tone of this poem- how does Rich sound?

Things to note The first 4 lines reveal the apartment is a place of monsters- what are the nightmarish qualities?

Lines 4-8 reveal the underside, instruments of torture – note them Why the break before ‘desert sands’ ?

Kenneth owns and has arranged the library. The names are all of male writers- how do we know that Rich does not want us to admire them? (V&V)

In lines 14 and 15, the poet describes the history of women that is missing:

The final five lines return to the library, but the library is not full, what is Rich suggesting, what’s the image she creates?

Note the internal rhyme, she blames ‘me who would not’, comparing them with ‘women who could not’. Civilisation is an unexcavated hole and books represent a ‘half- world’ What is Rich getting at?

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Suffering

Absence of women from important matters Twenty One Love Poems VI

Style It’s not a sonnet, it has too many lines, but it has the sonnet ‘feel’ of a change towards the end (Octet to sestet)

What happens?

Count the syllables per line, is there a metre?

What are some good words to describe the tone of this poem- how does Rich sound?

Things to note The hands show that this is a woman speaking to a woman, the third line then goes from a particular woman to women in general

Note the repetition of the word ‘hands’ any connotations?

There is a list of things women can do, what do the things have in common? Is this a style of leadership?

What image does ‘piece together’ invoke?

The ‘great krater-cup’ in this case is a piece of Greek pottery depicting (as many Greek artworks did) the ‘sibyl’s den’ (the dwelling-place of a wise woman) and the ‘Eleusinian cave’ (a cave dedicated to the earth-goddess Demeter). Notice that these places are dark and hidden, it has been suggested that this is reflective of women’s sexuality.

We have 3 mentions of violence, as we had 3 mentions of hands at the start of the poem. There is an acknowledgement that hands are capable of violence, however , note how different violence will be in women’s hands, note the words that suggest this.

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Healing Twenty One Love Poems VII

What happens?

Things to Note The poem has 13 lines and 5 questions

Note the slightly ironic tone in the first line, perhaps we are being lulled into thinking the subsequent questions can be answered as easily. Note the harsh consonant sounds in the first 2 lines perhaps making the questions sound more like accusations.

In the third question the sounds are softer, note the ’l’s. The wolverine suggests nature, as writing is natural to the poet, however, there is a contrast as she recognises that words are not natural.

The next question is about whether the poet uses her lover for material, as she uses nature for material, perhaps humans are consumers and destroyers of nature. War and rivers are opposed and are repeated, nature V destruction, where does the poet stand and the uncertainty is heightened with a dash.

In the last 4 lines, fears are described, but first by what the fears aren’t, her fear is a failure, an inaction. She then looks at metaphors and dismisses them as they can never be the real thing- she is concerned with the inability of language to capture the reality of existence.

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Nature

The process of writing Twenty One Love Poems VIII

What happens?

Things to note

Here, the poet uses classical references to Philoctetes, a man who, according to legend was exiled from Greece. Philoctetes had a wound to the heel that festered and smelled terrible. Here, the poetis using Philoctetes as an extended metaphor for her own, emotional hurt that has lead her, in this poem, to contemplating suicide before deciding to move on as a new, whole person.

The first nine lines describe the poet’s emotional and physical presence in Greece, in Sunion,a popular tourist destination surrounded by sea.

Note the violence as she contemplates suicide. We are reassured that this won’t happen with the word ‘metier’ A French word that is also a pun on ‘meter’ as she is a poet, we are still reminded that she is ‘wounded’

Note the caesura on ‘finished’ and ‘dead’ Why the emphasis?

The poet is recognizing where she came from, the past is not completely discarded and importantly, the future holds ‘you’ her lover, we presume.

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Self reflection Twenty One Love Poems IX What happens In this poem, the reader is privy to a moment of disharmony between the poet and her lover. The silence between them is described as a ‘pond’, a body of unmoving water - it is important that the silence is unmoving because it suggests a stubbornness, a sulk. Moving water would suggest a changing attitude; the silence of the lover absorbs and does not alter. The poet describes herself as ‘waiting’ for her lover’s attitude to move, the poet wants to help her, but does not know how.

Things to Note The pond is a metaphor for silence, think about why the drowned things live. ‘but other faces’ what is the problem about?

What are the images for bringing things into the open?

The past is important, how is that conveyed?

What’s the effect of ‘waiting’ at the end of the line?

In the last 4 lines movement is suggested, what would the movement bring?

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Relationships