Tonight No Poetry Will Serve

By Adrienne Rich

This article appeared in the May 26, 2008 edition of The Nation.

May 7, 2008

Saw you walking barefoot
taking a long look
at the new moon's eyelid

later spread
sleep-fallen, naked in your dark hair
asleep but not oblivious
of the unslept unsleeping
elsewhere

Tonight I think
no poetry
will serve

Subscriber Login

4 ISSUES FREE

Subscribe Now!

The only way to read this article and the full contents of each week's issue of The Nation online is by subscribing to the magazine. Subscribe now and read this article -- and every article published since for the past five years -- right now.

There's no obligation -- try The Nation for four weeks free.

.

About Adrienne Rich

Adrienne Rich's most recent book is The School Among the Ruins: Poems 2000-2004. A selection of her essays, Arts of the Possible: Essays and Conversations, appeared in 2003.

She edited Muriel Rukeyser's Selected Poems for the Library of America. She is a recipient of the National Book Foundation's 2006 Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, among other awards.

Telephone Ringing in the Labyrinth: Poems 2004-2006 will be published in October 2007.

more...
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement

Blogs

» The Beat

House Passes Health Reform, But Without Reproductive Rights | Pelosi secures necessary votes, but only after allowing anti-choice Dems to bar access to abortion in new programs.
John Nichols
148 Comments

» Editor's Cut

Around The Nation | Obama, one year on. Plus: Jeremy Scahill takes your questions, and a new video series from The Nation.
Katrina vanden Heuvel
9 Comments

» The Notion

Injustice in Illinois | Prosecutors in Illinois should be more concerned with an innocent man behind bars than journalism students' grades.
Ari Berman
28 Comments

» The Dreyfuss Report

Obama Fails in Middle East | Clinton delivers the ultimate diss to Abbas.
Robert Dreyfuss
139 Comments

» Act Now!

Equality Across America | This week, young LBGT activists are staging a National Week of Initiative.
Peter Rothberg
16 Comments

» Altercation

Slacker Thursday | Dying laptops, recapping the election, the Dow, and the Yankees with the World Series.
Eric Alterman