"All violence is not equal"; Adrienne Rich's Post-9/11 Poetry and the Precarious Life

Arguably one of the most influential poets of the last century, Adrienne Rich produced a remarkable body of work during the span of her sixty-year career. As her career progressed, she became increasingly concerned with the intersections between public and private spheres. Consequently, Rich's late twentieth and early twenty-first century poetry often blends the personal with the political as it responds to the ever shifting cultural, social, and political landscape of the United States. In my thesis, I analyze Rich's final three postmillennial poetry collections, <italics>The School Among the Ruins<italics> (2004), <italics>Telephone Ringing in the Labyrinth<italics> (2007), and <italics>Tonight No Poetry Will Serve<italics> (2011), as I attempt to situate her post-9/11 political poetry within twenty-first century theoretical discourse. I apply key concepts from Judith Butler's <italics>Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence<italics> (2004) and <italics>Frames of War: When is Life Grievable?<italics> (2010) to four focal poems from each collection in an effort to offer new insight into the tactics Rich employs to challenge dominant, hegemonic narratives and awaken readers to the precariousness they share with the marginalized lives that they habitually ignore.

Grantor dc:publisher

Wake Forest University

Year dc:date.issued

2013

Author dc:creator

• Blevins, Jennifer Renee

• Adrienne Rich

Language dc:language.iso

en

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/10339/38563

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:wakespace.lib.wfu.edu:10339/38563