Women’s History Month is coming to a close, but I wanted to make sure I included the poem “Heroines” by poet and lesbian icon Adrienne Rich in my series of quotes about women and history. I am cutting here for purposes of length and copyright, but that is doing some injustice to Rich’s work. I urge you to find either of her works in which the poem appears, A Wild Patience Has Taken Me This Far or The Fact of a Doorframe, and read the whole thing:
Exceptional/even deviant/you draw your long skirts
across the nineteenth century/Your mind
burns long after death/not like the harbor beacon
but like a pyre of driftwood/on the beach/You are spared
illiteracy/death by pneumonia/teeth which leave the gums
the seamstress’ clouded eyes/the mill-girl’s shortening breath
by a collection/of circumstances/soon to be known as
class privilege/The law says you can possess nothing/in a world
where property is everything . . . .
You draw your long skirts/deviant/across the nineteenth century
registering injustice/failing to make it whole
How can I fail to love/your clarity and fury
how can I give you/all your due/take courage from your courage
honor your exact/legacy as it is
recognizing/as well/that it is not enough?
