Adrienne Rich: 'I happen to think poetry makes a huge difference'
"Somehow when we are in the process of making some kind of self-transformation--pushing ourselves out there further, maybe taking some risk that we never believed we would take before--sometimes a poem will come to us by some sort of magnetic attraction." ---
Adrienne Rich, in her 1994 Interview from The Progressive by Matthew Rothschild
and for me, this is one of those poems...
Prospective Immigrants Please Note
Adrienne Rich
Either you will
go through this door
or you will not go through.
If you go through
there is always the risk
of remembering your name.
Things look at you doubly
and you must look back
and let them happen.
If you do not go through
it is possible
to live worthily
to maintain your attitudes
to hold your position
to die bravely
but much will blind you,
much will evade you,
at what cost who knows?
The door itself
makes no promises.
It is only a door.
(italics mine)
Weaved at 4:16:24 pm by onylu
