The Dream of a Common Language: Poems 1974-1977

Rich, textured, honest, hard, open, The Dream of a Common Language is poetry at its most accomplished. Adrienne Rich appears to tap into the very deepest core of the human psyche here, creating a range of poems about love and loss which have a vast reach of expression and depth. For the fan of contemporary poetry, this is a collection which must be read and re-read.

I sat in a cushy green chair at Barnes and Noble reading these poems by Adrienne Rich and something unexplainable - almost impossible to put words to - happened to me. I connected deeply to her messages, the words she wrote when I was a teen, might as well have been written right in the here and now. A lone tear slid down my face as I read about a woman in her 40's, like me, who was dying, not like me, who had a friend, like me, who wasn't sure how to support her in her time of need, universal. I have experienced a lot of loss this year. The poetry of Adrienne Rich reached into my heart and let me express it more. Isn't that what good poetry is supposed to be? A catalyst to awakening, cathartic, enriching? Rich writes of power, female power. She writes a poem about Paula Becker and Clara Westhoff (bride to Rainer Rilke, another favorite poet of mine.) My favorite is "Transcendent Etude" which is, indeed, transcendent. "No one ever told us we had to study our lives, make our lives a study..." Study these poems and dive deeper into your life. You will not regret it.

Years ago I was trying to keep warm at an MBTA bus stop where I read the opening lines of "The Dream of a Common Language" on a poster that advertised a reading and discussion by the author at Brandeis. I was moved to tears. I didn't get to Brandeis, but I bought and still cherish the book.

Adrienne Rich is a poet for everyone - especially those who say they don't like poetry - and the Dream of a Common Language is her most fascinating and accessible collection to date. Think poetry is boring, pretentious or hackneyed? Open up to "Love Poems" and find 32 sultry and pain-stakingly honest celebrations of lesbian love and urban survival. Rich has recently been receiving the wide recognition she deserves, and she will perhaps be the one to convince Americans to open their poetry books again.

In The Dream of a Common Language, the poetry of Adrienne Rich reaches a realm of pure beauty. Rich cuts away the verbal excesses sometimes found in her other works and leaves the vibrant words to stand alone in their powerful simplicity. The reader finds herself emerged in the common language of love, pain, hope, and longing. Only when the final poem has been read, is she able to emerge, gasping, and view the world through vision forever altered by having seen through the eyes of Adrienne Rich