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Question: What is this poem talking about-interesting but hard to analyse!? :(!?
If Your Name Is on the List
-Addriene Rich
If your name is on the list of judges
you're one of them
though you fought their hardening
assumptions went and stood
alone by the window while they
concurred
It wasn't enough to hold your singular
minority opinion
You had to face the three bridges
down the river
your old ambitions
flamboyant in bloodstained mist
You had to carry off under arm
and write up in perfect loneliness
your soul-splitting dissent
Yes, I know a soul can be partitioned like a country
In all the new inhere old judgments
loyalties crumbling send up sparks and smoke
We want to be part of the future dragging in
what pure futurity can't use
Sudddenly a narrow street a little beach a little century
screams Don't let me go
Don't let me die Do you forget
what we were to each other
1999
I believe it may have something to do with the destroying of the environment by human kind but please give me ur opinion :)Www@QuestionHome@Com
Best Answer - Chosen by Asker:
Although the poem is open to your interpretation, of course, if what you're looking for is the artist's intent, I'd start from a feminist perspective!. Most of her work deals with feminism and patriarchy in some way, especially as it concerns the formation of female identity, both in an individual and societal context!. Other works of hers that may lend you insight into this work include Of Woman Born, Diving Into the Wreck, and Aunt Jennifer's Tigers!. They each deal with the things that women experience and sacrifice when trying to conform to a patriarchal hierarchy, and a corollary of that dilemma is also the environmental toll that some people believe a society based on that hierarchy exacts!. : ) Www@QuestionHome@Com
Any interpretation that you can make a good argument for is right!. Poetry is personal!.Www@QuestionHome@Com
I think it has to do with the death penalty!.
Appellate court with majority and minority (dissenting) opinions!. In this case the main character in the poem is the dissenting opinion!. "Carry off under arm (legal briefs) "write up in perfect loneliness your dissent"
Down or up the river is a euphemism for going to prison!.
And the visual: "sparks and smoke"!?
And "a little century screams Don't let me go" Could refer to the loss of innocence by re-instituting the death penalty in the latter half of the century!?
But an error in reference to the turn of the century being 1999-2000 when it was actually 2000-2001Www@QuestionHome@Com