Adrienne Rich, a major figure in the recent history of American poetry and a frequent writer for The Nation, died on March 27 at the age of 82. In addition to the twenty-one poems she contributed over fifty years (five of which are reprinted below, with their original date of publication), Rich also wrote essays and reviews for the magazine. A remark in her review of John Berryman’s 77 Dream Songs could serve as a description of her own work: “One is conscious, as in few other poets, of a steely thread of strength running through the dislocation and the ruin.”   —Jordan Davis   * * *   At Willard Brook   November 18, 1961   Spirit like water moulded by unseen stone and sandbar, pleats and funnels according to its own submerged necessity— to the indolent eye pure wilfulness, to the stray pine-needle boiling in that cascade-bent pool a random fury: Law, if that’s what’s wanted, lies asking to be read in the dried brook-bed.   * * *     For Example   November 23, 1963   Sometimes you meet an old man whose fist isn’t clenched blue-white. Someone like that old poet   whose grained palm once travelled the bodies of sick children. Back in the typed line   was room for everything: the blue grape hyacinth patch, the voluntary touch   of cheek on breast, the ear alert for a changed heartbeat and for other sounds too   that live in a typed line: breath of animals, stopping and starting up of busses,   trashfires in empty lots. Attention once given returned again as power.   An old man’s last few evenings might be inhabited not by a public—   fountains of applause off auditorium benches, tributes read at hotel banquets—   but by reverberations the ear had long desired, accepted and absorbed.   The late poem might be written in a night suddenly awake with quiet new sounds   as when a searchlight plays against the dark bush-tangle and birds speak in reply.     * * *     Translations   December 25, 1972   You show me the poems of some woman my age, or younger translated from your language   Certain words occur: enemy, oven, sorrow enough to let me know she’s a woman of my time   obsessed   with Love, our subject: we’ve trained it like ivy to our walls baked it like bread in our ovens worn it like lead on our ankles watched it through binoculars as if it were a helicopter bringing food to our famine or the satellite of a hostile power   I begin to see that woman doing things: stirring rice ironing a skirt typing a manuscript till dawn   trying to make a call from a phonebooth   The phone rings endlessly in a man’s bedroom she hears him telling someone else Never mind. She’ll get tired. hears him telling her story to her sister   who becomes her enemy and will in her own way light her own way to sorrow   ignorant of the fact this way of grief is shared, unnecessary and political   * * *     Tonight No Poetry Will Serve   May 26, 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   Syntax of rendition:   verb pilots the plane adverb modifies action   verb force-feeds noun submerges the subject noun is choking verb   disgraced   goes on doing   there are adjectives up for sale   now diagram the sentence   * * *     Quarto   June 8, 2009   1. Call me Sebastian, arrows sticking all over The map of my battlefields. Marathon. Wounded Knee. Vicksburg. Jericho. Battle of the Overpass. Victories turned inside out But no surrender   Cemeteries of remorse The beaten champion sobbing Ghosts move in to shield his tears     2. No one writes lyric on a battlefield On a map stuck with arrows But I think I can do it if I just lurk In my tent pretending to Refeather my arrows   I’ll be right there! I yell When they come with their crossbows and white phosphorus To recruit me   Crouching over my drafts lest they find me out and shoot me       3. Press your cheek against my medals, listen through them to my heart Doctor, can you see me if I’m naked?   Spent longer in this place than in the war No one comes but rarely and I don’t know what for   Went to that desert as many did before Farewell and believing and hope not to die   Hope not to die and what was the life Did we think was awaiting after   Lay down your stethoscope back off on your skills Doctor can you see me when I’m naked?         4. I’ll tell you about the mermaid Sheds swimmable tail Gets legs for dancing Sings like the sea with a choked throat Knives straight up her spine Lancing every step There is a price There is a price For every gift And all advice