Midnight Salvage: Poems 1995-1998

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acp5x, December 4, 2006 (view all comments by acp5x)
At first read, it was difficult to comprehend Adrienne Rich?s poems in her book Midnight Salvage. They were so complex and full of imagery that it seemed one could get lost in the intricate webs she wove. However, the poems were also very structured in the midst of everything else, which gave one some groundwork from where to start. It was strange reading the poetry, which lacked grammatical clarity. Several readings though revealed an inner theme that held the discord together into something beautiful but hidden. Rich?s poems are often divided into sections, and each section seems to show an entirely different facet of the theme of the poem at hand. Nevertheless, there are times when a poem?s sections seem so disparate, like pieces of more than one puzzle mixed together. The notes at the end of the book quite useful in helping understand where some of the things mentioned come from. Overall, her writing makes one really think about how everything is interconnected so that everything arises from everything.
Her titles often seem completely disconnected from the poems they refer to. Other times, they seem to simply be a line from the poem in question. This can be confusing to the reader because there is no hint to what is to come. On the other hand, it is a nice relief to start reading the poem with no expectations for it whatsoever. For example, the poem ?For an Anniversary? speaks of ospreys and their young. There seems to be no connection to any kind of anniversary. This brings one to wonder about why Rich chose to title it that, if it came from a personal experience, and what that experience was. On the flip side, ?Letters to a Young Poet? seems to be more of a useful title than anything else. Though it gives us the general topic, it still does not really tell us what to expect, because letters can be about anything. All the titles seem to be like that ? unrelated, disconnected, or useful, and nothing more. This brings into the light the question of why she chose the title Midnight Salvage for the book since it is also the apparently-disconnected title of one of her poems. This could be to emphasize a theme of interconnection.
Rich?s poems are oftentimes very structured, but this is not obvious. They do not all share the same structure, and many seem wildly overgrown. Some of them are structured simply into the number of lines per stanza, while others are more complex, and there is no simple explanation. The last poem in the book is an interesting example. Titled ?A Long Conversation,? it incorporates many different styles and topics ? just like a real conversation, except that it looks one-sided. Most likely it is Rich?s side of the conversation. She even includes prose in it at one point, whereas other times she uses rhyme. In contrast, the poem ?Shattered Head? is mostly consistent in the way the lines are indented to emphasize certain points like ?but time is a bloodshot eye? after the non-indented line ?When? When? cry the soothseekers.? No matter the way each poem is written, its form fits its purpose and theme.
The imagery used in much of these poems can be compared to that used by Sam Taylor in that both are very disparate and imaginative. However, Rich?s imagery seems to be more cosmopolitan and generally sophisticated in nature. She speaks of giving someone ?the earring, crushed lapis if it were? in the poem ?The Art of Translation? and of ?the famous dessert [that] is baked alaska / ice cream singed in a flowerpot / from the oven, a live tulip inserted there? in the poem ?Seven Skins.? This could be a reflection of her own life or education, or it could be coming from her point of view of the world as sophisticated. This type of imagery gives a certain impression of worldliness to her poems, though the themes may not reflect this. For example, the poem ?Camino Real? mentions ?a kind of alchemy, a study of transformation? though the poem itself is about the unhappy road to happiness. The poem ?The Night Has a Thousand Eyes? speaks of ?basalt blurring spectral headlights / darkblue stabbed with platinum? as a way of describing the dark. Rich even creates some words, by combining two words into one, such as ?santabarbara? in the poem ?Camino Real.? This gives a touch of vernacular to her poems, a relief from her usually more complex diction.

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jlp7b, December 3, 2006 (view all comments by jlp7b)
Reading Adrienne Rich?s Midnight Salvage is like trying to assemble a jigsaw puzzle. When I started reading the book, I felt completely lost. I had no idea where to begin or focus first, as if I had just opened a box and dumped the puzzle pieces haphazardly onto the floor. Feeling overwhelmed, I turned to the additional material from Rich?s, What is Found There, in search of some guidance. Reading her essays, especially ?Dearest Arturo,? was like turning over the box lid to see the picture of the completed puzzle. This letter provided a bit of insight into Rich?s life, as it addressed her upbringing, physical handicap, sexual orientation, and political beliefs. Though these things do not completely define her as a person, they give an idea of her perspective and the issues she has faced in her life. Now that I could see the big picture, it was easier to dive back into the book and attempt to fit the other pieces into place. As I read, I noticed several recurring themes in Rich?s poems, as well as her effective use of imagery, but found myself continually fumbling with the unfamiliar vocabulary, like the oddly shaped puzzle pieces that never quite seem to belong.
Adrienne Rich does not appear to be an unhappy person. Her poetry, though not particularly dark or angry, is not really optimistic or uplifting either. She writes not necessarily about being happy, but about finding and understanding happiness and hope. She does not try to quantify happiness, but to somehow define it. In ?Camino Real,? Rich references fellow poet Charles Olson?s view of happiness, then states her own interpretation in the lines, ?I take him to mean/ that happiness is in itself is a magical study? (51-52). This leads me to believe that, to Rich, happiness is ethereal. It is perhaps attainable, but also elusive and unpredictable, and thus difficult to classify. Later in ?Camino Real?, she writes, ?at the end of a day/ of great happiness if there be such a day? (63-64), which sounds slightly pessimistic, as if she believes such a day of happiness and perfection cannot exist. I would like to know the poet?s criteria for a day of great happiness.
In addition to the theme of happiness, Rich?s poems often deal with feelings of loneliness and isolation. In ?Letters to a Young Poet,? Rich writes, ?I wanted not to be/ there so alone? (76-77). Although this statement is fairly straightforward, it did not mean much to me until I read ?Dearest Arturo,? and realized the poet?s reasons for feeling alone. It is not loneliness in the simple sense of wanting the company of another human being, but the loneliness of a unique and difficult situation, the loneliness of having no one who can truly share the pain of life. There is a sense of desperation in Rich?s writing, a yearning to overcome both the physical limitations of her disability, as well as the limitations imposed on women in modern society. In ?Seven Skins,? Rich captures this quest for self-improvement:
What a girl I was then what a body
ready for breaking open like a lobster
what a little provincial village
what a hermit crab seeking nobler shells (59-62).

I like the image of the hermit crab because it perfectly illustrates the need for growth and change. Rich, like a hermit crab, does not want to be restricted, and the ?nobler shells? are her goals and aspirations. After reading this passage, I more fully understood the speaker?s desire to conquer obstacles and evolve, and I empathized with the idea of wanting more out of life.
Whenever I had difficulty finding meaning in Rich?s poems, I turned to her vivid descriptions. In poems that span several pages, her use of imagery catches my attention and helps redirect my focus. For instance, I was quite startled by the gory scene in ?Shattered Head,? when Rich describes the ?(porridge of skull-splinters, brain tissue/ mouth and throat membrane, cranial fluid)? (14-15). This graphic detail is so arresting that it is impossible not to continue reading. I also like the image Rich uses at the end of ?Seven Skins.? Though most of the poem focuses on another person, Vic Greenberg, it ends with an intimate image involving both Vic and the speaker. Rich describes the moment as a ?heroic tremor/ released into pure moisture? (88-89), an image that artfully evokes the passion and intensity of the situation.
The most challenging piece of Rich?s poetry puzzle is her extensive vocabulary. Because my use of context clues failed me as I encountered unknown words, I consulted a dictionary to avoid misinterpreting things. For instance, the third section of ?Midnight Salvage? made much more sense after learning the correct definition of ?soothsayers.? Some meanings, however, still elude me. Rich uses the word ?lozenge? twice in the poem ?Modotti,? but its definition seems inconsistent. At first, I thought it was a light, as in the ?streetlamp?s wet lozenge? (9), but I could not make sense of the ?bathtub?s lozenge? (18). Why would there be a light in the bathtub? Structurally speaking, I am confused as to why Rich punctuates certain lines with double colons, as she does in ?Midnight Salvage? and ?Camino Real.? This use of colons does not seem any more effective than the use of indentations or line breaks. However, one possible explanation might be that they serve as a replacement for a word, a sign something was deleted there, like an invitation to fill in the blank with a word of the reader?s choosing.
Reading Adrienne Rich?s Midnight Salvage is challenging and requires more effort than one might expect. She does not neatly arrange things, allowing the reader to easily understand every word. I worked to find meaning in Rich?s poetry, questioning and changing as I tried to make the pieces fit. Completing Midnight Salvage, like finally finishing a good puzzle, left me feeling fulfilled, as if I had truly accomplished something.

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jrs2wc, December 3, 2006 (view all comments by jrs2wc)
Weaving together her poems for Midnight Salvage, Adrienne Rich cross-stitches her own flesh into the body of her poems. Rich?s communistic social and political views, strong feminism, and poetic opinions bleed into her lyrical free-verse, and her repeated practice of dating poems underscores her intent to contextualize a poem within the confines of her own life. By making her writings a part of herself, Rich achieves poems that are biased, jaded, and cynical, yet simultaneously raw, original, and ultimately astonishing.
Utilizing a distinct, almost cinematic form of cutting away from one scene to the next, Rich keeps her poems intact with thematic undertones pervasive throughout her poetry. The commonality of communistic political views and controlled outrage over social injustices infused in virtually all of her work ties the book together, while the individual themes of each poem hold seemingly unrelated scenes in concert with one another. In ?Char,? for example, Rich connects three distinctly different collections of stanzas by not only weaving the story of French Resistance poet Rene Char throughout the poem, but by also approaching the topic of war with a carefully crafted disdain. In ?Rusted Legacy,? Rich attacks society from the communist?s perspective by portraying a city, ?partitioned divorced from its hills? (Rich 52), commenting on both the state system and presence of unequal classes unfavorably. The culmination of the sociopolitical poetry is ?A Long Conversation,? in which Rich quotes sizeable portions of Karl Marx?s Communist Manifesto, strategically grafting the tenets of communism to her work. In addition to her communist beliefs, Rich also conveys her feminism to the reader, more so by writing through the narrowed lens of a contemporary woman than by any overt indications.
The effect of the common themes and views underlying Rich?s poetry is a sense of cohesiveness throughout individual poems and the collection which counters the stylistic form employed throughout Midnight Salvage. The stanzas of most poems exist as self-sufficient snapshots of unique scenes or ideas, with some numbered or spaced to promote even more isolation between poetic thoughts. The themes help to reconcile the severed stanzas despite Rich?s insistence on cutting from one scene to the next. However, despite the commonality of themes adding a sense of unification to her poetry, references that reinforce themes sometimes cloud the overall meaning of the poem; without footnotes explaining ?Char? and ?Modotti? many readers could become mired in the muddy references. Likewise entire paragraph excerpts from Marx?s manifesto help strengthen her ability to convey social and political views, but add confusion to the overall understanding of ?A Long Conversation.? Rich?s abrupt scene-shifting as well, especially in this poem, can confound the cloudiness she creates.
To further connect her poems and pour herself into her poetry, Rich uses the book to document her ever-evolving definition of poetry and poets, defining herself in the process. In ?The Art of Translation,? Rich writes of stealing and hiding words so that only the poem?s narrator can use them and then calls poetry ?contraband? (4). ?Letters to a Young Poet? describes poetry living ?its own life? (26), and ?Plaza Street and Flatbrush? notes, ?artists do as they must? (36). Adding her personal definition of poetry to her poem creates a literary fractal, as it implies a poem within a poem, and helps the readers adjust their own lenses to match the lens of Rich. By aiding the reader to see the world as she sees it, or see poetry as she sees it, Rich intensifies the feeling that she is indeed part of her poems.
Midnight Salvage represents Rich?s struggle to find hope within her own cynicism, a cynicism which she unabashedly embraces in her work. Her poems are raw and real, drawing from her feminism, lesbianism, communism, cynicism, social engagement, moral beliefs, and poetic success, all of which contribute to her sense of self. Because Rich is unafraid to let her true self leak onto the page, her poems are challenging, confrontational, unconventional and thus remarkable.

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Product Details

ISBN:

9780393046823

Author:

Rich, Adrienne Cecile

Publisher:

W. W. Norton & Company

Author:

Rich, Adrienne Cecile

Location:

New York :

Subject:

American

Subject:

American - General

Subject:

Poetry (poetic works by one author)

Subject:

Single Author - American (General)

Subject:

Poetry-A to Z

Copyright:

1999

Edition Number:

1st ed.

Publication Date:

19990131

Binding:

Hardcover

Language:

English

Illustrations:

Yes

Pages:

75

Dimensions:

8.56x5.98x.53 in. .52 lbs.