Living in the earth-deposits of our history Today a backhoe divulged out of a crumbling flank of earth one bottle amber perfect a hundred-year-oldcure for fever or melancholy a tonic for living on this earth in the winters of this climate.Today I was reading about Marie Curie:she must have known she suffered from radiation sickness her body bombarded for years by the element she had purified It seems she denied to the end the source of the cataracts on her eyes the cracked and suppurating skin of her finger-end still she could no longer hold a test-tube or a pencilShe died a famous woman denying her wounds denying her wounds came from the same source as her power.
Rich's poem has a lot of emotion built in. This woman she is explaining has problems from a terrible sickness. She writes how this woman refused to addmit there was a sickness when saying, "She denied to the end." Rich tries to get across the lonelyness in this woman's life as her ending days approach. How she was unaware of what was happening to the changing of her body but still faught through it all. I feel the title is this poem deal with exactly that. The power in which this women indulged into during her sickness.

Adrienne Rich was born on May 16, 1929 in Baltimore, Maryland. Sher dealt with many problem when growing up involving her father's Jewish background and mother's Protestanism. All her life she was very close to her father and under his protection and guidance she began writing poetry. The years of 1953 to 1958 were also very difficult for Rich.In those few years she got married and had three sons. This changed both her life and poetry. She went through a ton of distress while letting her feelings and emotions out in her writings as actual art. Her peices became one of the most elaquent, provocative voices on the topics of sexually, race, language, power and womens rights. In 1997, she refused the National Medal of Arts, stating that "I could not accept such an award from President Clinton or this White House because the very meaning of art, as I understand it, is incompatible with the cynical politics of this administration." She went on to say: "[Art] means nothing if it simply decorates the dinner table of the power which holds it hostage."Adrienne Rich - Poets.org - Poetry, Poems, Bios & More. Her works of writing are of America because what she came out to say involved details and actions about the happenings of that time period. She formed her thoughts from the surroundings in her everything life.
I dreamed I called you on the telephone to say:
Be kinder to yourself but you were sick and would not answer
The waste of my love goes on this way trying to save you from yourself
I have always wondered about the left-overenergy,
the way water goes rushing down a hill long after the rains have stopped
or the fire you want to go to bed from
but cannot leave, burning-down but not burnt-down
the red coals more extreme, more curiousin their flashing and dying
than you wish they weresitting long after midnight