An Atlas of the Difficult World
A poet sitting down to write turns instead to the country she is writing in — the sprayed artichoke fields of Salinas, a woman beaten in a Vermont kitchen, the veterans, the reservations, the coast on either side. Thirteen sections move between the national map and a single lit room, and a closing litany names one by one the readers who might be holding the pages. Written through the Gulf War years, it is Rich's fullest attempt at a public poem for a republic she will neither leave nor praise.
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Attributes
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Conflict
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Closest analogues
- 73% · 16 shared
- 63% · 14 shared
- 60% · 13 shared
- 59% · 12 shared
- 59% · 11 shared
- 59% · 11 shared