Fox: Poems 1998-2000

by Adrienne Rich

A major new work by one of our most distinguished and commanding poets. In this new volume, Adrienne Rich pursues her signature themes and takes them further: the discourse between poetry and history, interlocutions within and across gender, dialogues between poets and visual artists, human damages and dignity, and the persistence of utopian visions. Here Rich continues taking the temperature of mind and body in her time in an intimate and yet commanding voice that resonates long after an initial reading. With two long exploratory poems ("Veteran's Day" and "Terza Rima") as framework, and the title poem as core, Fox is formidable and moving, fierce and passionate, and one of Rich's most powerful works to date.

Genres: Poetry, Feminism, LGBT, Nonfiction

Hardcover

First published March 1, 2001

About the author

Works, notably Diving into the Wreck (1973), of American poet and essayist Adrienne Rich champion such causes as pacifism, feminism, and civil rights for gays and lesbians.

A mother bore Adrienne Cecile Rich, a feminist, to a middle-class family with parents, who educated her until she entered public school in the fourth grade. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Radcliffe college in 1951, the same year of her first book of poems, A Change of World. That volume, chosen by W. H. Auden for the Yale Series of Younger Poets Award, and her next, The Diamond Cutters and Other Poems (1955), earned her a reputation as an elegant, controlled stylist.

In the 1960s, however, Rich began a dramatic shift away from her earlier mode as she took up political and feminist themes and stylistic experimentation in such works as Snapshots of a Daughter-in-Law (1963), The Necessities of Life (1966), Leaflets (1969), and The Will to Change (1971). In Diving into the Wreck (1973) and The Dream of a Common Language (1978), she continued to experiment with form and to deal with the experiences and aspirations of women from a feminist perspective.

In addition to her poetry, Rich has published many essays on poetry, feminism, motherhood, and lesbianism. Her recent collections include An Atlas of the Difficult World (1991) and Dark Fields of the Republic: Poems 1991–1995 (1995).

Reviews

[Jon Nakapalau · Rating 5 out of 5]

Like a remembered conversation that you are trying to recall; a centered and reflective look at the world that still leaves room for individual notes of experience.

[Julie Ehlers · Rating 4 out of 5]

so in my body's head
so in the stormy spaces
that life
leads itself which could not be led

[Adriana Scarpin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fox

I needed fox Badly I needed
a vixen for the long time none had come near me
I needed recognition from a
triangulated face burnt-yellow eyes
fronting the long body the fierce and sacrificial tail
I needed history of fox briars of legend it was said she had run through
I was in want of fox

And the truth of briars she had to have run through
I craved to feel on her pelt if my hands could even slide
past or her body slide between them sharp truth distressing surfaces of fur
lacerated skin calling legend to account
a vixen's courage in vixen terms

For a human animal to call for help
on another animal
is the most riven the most revolted cry on earth
come a long way down
Go back far enough it means tearing and torn endless and sudden
back far enough it blurts
into the birth-yell of the yet-to-be human child
pushed out of a female the yet-to-be woman

[Talia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Favorite poems from this book:
Regardless, Fox, Messages, and Grating....

Some of Rich's poems are so good/deep that i don't really even understand what she is talking about... but i know it's beautiful... or powerful... and that's enough for me!

[Erin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Notable works were “Fox”, “Terza Rima”, and “Veteran’s Day”. Rich’s structure and diction reflect the shift of centuries, with poems from 1999 to 2000. A lot of the poems came off as complicated or heavy, whether that’s good or critical you be the judge, but only a handful were the most noteworthy out of this small collection.

[za · Rating 4 out of 5]

i find some poems challenging to decipher and because of that, difficult to connect with. when i do come across a piece that speaks to me, however, its amazing. rich's style is terse and piercing and deeply sensitive.

[missy jean · Rating 4 out of 5]

Terza Rima is a new favorite.

[Dhiyanah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I either slide past Adrienne Rich's poems or I get entangled in the moments of her lines -- the rhythm of words when read slowly, the images overlapping memories and history. A favorite line from this, "The most personal feelings become historical," sums up my observations of her poetic voice. The collection's titular poem is mesmerizing in its evocation of yearning. Terza Rima felt a landscape of being lost internally/externally. This was one of those collections that had enough for me to want to keep re-reading.

[Magali · Rating 4 out of 5]

In my readings of Adrienne Rich's work, I never found a poem I did not find beautiful, even when it did not connect with me/did not make me feel anything. In this collection, all the poems are beautiful AND they all made me feel something. I think it's one of the best collections of her work I have read so far... Still, none of those poems would rank in my top10 I think... It's a balanced and beautiful collection that I would recommand.

[Meds · Rating 4 out of 5]

Poetry that plays with concepts and images. Sometimes I found it hard to understand the meaning of some verses due to the word arrangement. Definitely requires a reread. Themes of progress, poetry and machines, painting, the human body, utopian visions.

It's the first volume poetry I read where the author leaves triple spaces between words to create a sense of pause.
Eg: "you in long-stiffened gloves still"
I quite like this.

You can feel the author through the poems even when the voice is changed.

"if, lying full length
on the studio floor
the artist were to paint herself
in monochrome
from a mirror in the ceiling
an elongated figure suspended across the room
first horizontal

then straight up and naked
free of beauty
ordinary in fact"
— Grating, II

[Craig Werner · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fox has always been of the Adrienne Rich books I've had the hardest time getting a clear sense of. That was a little less true this time, probably because I've been reading Rich steadily and have a stronger sense of how the later volumes speak to one another and amplify a core set of themes. One of the most important of those is the relationship between the personal and historical experiences at the end of the 20th century: "Together on the bare slope where we were driven/ The most personal feeling become historical" ("Messages.") Rich feels a strong urge toward withdrawal, towards find a space of protection--that's part of why the fox, present in her poetry since the 60s, is even more clearly a totem animal. At the same time that urge haunts her: "at work in my wormeaten wormwood-raftered/ stateless underground/ have I a plea? ("For This").

She clings to what she calls a "lighthouse keeper's ethics," knowing that whatever she offers has to be available to all, that she can't limit her speech a chosen audience. That creates real tensions as she assesses "Paths that hav failed as paths trees/ that have failed as trees..../ in search of reasons underground which there why this must be" ("Second Sight.") Viewing herself as a pilot exploring paths "through current and countercurrent," a task "requiring silence and concentration" ("Grating"). An tentativeness, unusual for Rich, occupies the emotional center of Fox, but what remains constant is her drive to imagine a future, to catch "some sniff or prescience of/ a life that actually could be."

Recommended poems: "For This," "Fox," "Messages," "Second Sight," "Grating," "Terza Rima," and "Rauschenberg's Bed."

[Mely · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rereading this before getting to Tonight No Poetry Will Serve. One of my favorites of her recent collections.

Title poem.

[AnandaTashie · Rating 4 out of 5]

from Waiting For You At The Mystery Spot (p 59): "I sit listening to voices watching the miraculous migration / of sunshafts through the redwoods the great spears / folding up / into letters from the sun deposited through dark green / slots / each one saying / I love you but / I must draw away Believe, I will return..."

[Mallory · Rating 4 out of 5]

An unexpectedly captivating collection of thoughts tracing a unique shift in perspective which parallels the process of age and dying. Perhaps this shift is so captivating because it is so different from the hopeless optimism of Rich's earlier work.
 
In Regardless, Octobrish, Grating and Noctilucent Clouds, Rich appears to be reckoning with the schism of human connection. This is felt most fully in her line "We swayed together like cripples when the wind / suddenly turned a corner or was it we who turned". Disillusionment with the power of the present is also a common theme as seen in Second Sight and Terza Rima. Here, the present no longer redeems but rather reveals the startling complexity of the human condition. Yet, in true Rich fashion, many of these pieces, despite their fractured nature, still edge towards hope. The balance of these states is demonstrated most fully in Messages where, although in the context of time "the most personal feelings become historical" the power of time as the great equalizer ironically comforts the poet "falling open like a sweater."

Well worth the read. But should definitely be considered in context to Rich's work as a whole, rather than a singular collection.

[Brittany Mishra · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the first book of Rich that I've read and I'm wishing I had picked up some of her earlier work. I'm not so sure I enjoyed any of her poems in this collection. I found them hard to grasp, abstract. There were a lot of images throughout, but so many were jarring and didn't fit in with anything. Maybe this was what she was trying to do, but it left me feeling confused and lost. I plan to pick up some older work of hers, I want to give her another chance.

[Laurel Perez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rich is a pure poetic goddess, in this particular collection she overlaps gender, history, and memories in really interesting ways. "The most personal feelings become historical," in her poetic voice. The collection's titular poem "Fox" is mesmerizing in its evocation of yearning. As each poem bled into the next, I couldn't put this down.

[Jasper · Rating 3 out of 5]

Left me feeling lukewarm. The poet engages with political topics but there doesn't seem to be investment in them. She somehow made poems about being bisexual boring. There is just no color, no brightness, as if the poems are painted in various shades of gray and tan. I didn't hate it, and can recognize she has skills, but this isn't my cup of tea.

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rich is one of those giants of American poetry, and though I always admire the craftsmanship and intelligence of her work, for whatever reason it just never really resonates with me. Found this volume at a library book sale and decided again to give her another shot. There are some nice individual pieces in Fox, but again, I was somewhat underwhelmed.

[james · Rating 3 out of 5]

'we're not yet out of the everglades / of the last century / our body parts are still there / though we would have our minds careen and swoop / over the new ocean / with a wild surmise / the bloody strings / tangled and stuck between / become our lyre'

[Yana · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn't really feel like I understood, but a bright spot is that this collection had me thinking about writing my own poetry.

[Bethanne Bruninga-Socolar · Rating 2 out of 5]

I just could not get into these poems, or find anything relatable in them.

[Kathryn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Her words are a labyrinth. I think I could read the same words everyday and still find new wonders in them. I learn so much from her with every poem.

[Audrey]

particularly liked Terza Rima and should look into Blaise Pascal (le silence éternel de ces éspaces m’effraye)

[Xander · Rating 2 out of 5]

i might be the problem for this one. rly trying to enjoy reading poetry..so far an uphill battle

[faith adams-michaels · Rating 3 out of 5]

i lead

[katy *ੈ✩‧₊˚ · Rating 2 out of 5]

she just be saying shit

[Patricia N. McLaughlin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Favorite Poems:
“For This”
“Regardless”
“Nora’s Gaze”
“Octobrish”
“Noctilucent Clouds”
“If Your Name Is on the List”
“Rauschenberg’s Bed”

[Meghan Violet · Rating 4 out of 5]

how i hate it when you ascribe to me a “woman’s vision” cozy with coffee pots drawn curtains

[A Poste · Rating 2 out of 5]

- … the beneficiary of atrocities yearns towards innocence
- … your practice of despair you named anarchism
- … deadweight someone without death skills
- … a soul can be partitioned like a country
- … what clitoris lain very still in her own subversion

[Kimberly Seibert · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was particularly fond of the poem titled "Messages" it was a short poem but to the point with great prose. The rest of the poetry in this book was rather bland to me.