Time's power poet
Adrienne Rich speaks with feminist voice
The Michigan Daily - Friday, March 30, 1990 - Page 9
L EEHESPOTLIGHT.
by Jay Pinka
ADRIENNE Rich's presentation at
Rackham this Sunday will far exceed
the stereotypical limits of literary
expression; it promises to be a cele-
bration of the revolution of mind
that spurned the feminist movement.
Hopefully, she will read from her
latest book, Time's Power Poems.
Since 1951, Rich has been lifting
away the layers of society which,
0 through force of habit, have re-
pressed true personal growth in both
amen and women by pushing men
into unfeeling roles in an aggressive
patriarchal system and repressing
women through expectations of a
submissive and static, self-sacrific-
ing attitude.
Rich began her career with what
,she calls in her essay "Poetry and
Experience" (1964) "an absolutist
W approach to the universe," feeling
that the meanings in her poems were
somehow "predetermined." Her con-
centration on technical clarity in A
Change Of World (1951) and The
Diamond Cutters and Other Poems
(1955), however, reflects the nature
of her poetry only in its intensity
and prolificality. Rich's peeling
away of the dead skin of our culture
became more prevalent in Snapshots
of a Daughter-In-Law (1963), in
which the title poem reveals a
woman struggling to break out of
the prison "provided" by her female
ancestors, to experience every mo-
ment of life without retreating to the
false security of repressive patterns.
In Necessities of Life (1966),
Rich foreshadowed her later revolu-
tionary stance as a critic of our cul-
d tire and its systems by revealing the
disharmony between human beings
and nature. She continually asserts
the necessity of integrating the spir-
it with the body and the intellect, as
reflected in the connection between
all living things in nature. She also
writes that erotic love can act to fuse
spirit and matter in a fulfilling fash-
ion, thereby expressing the true self
and strengthening human relation-
ships into a supportive community,
something toward which society
should be continually working.
Leaflets (1968) and The Will to
Change (1968-1970) further fleshed
out Rich's views of the imbalances
caused by patriarchal mastery, show-
ing the distress of minorities,
women and the aged, and their
"invisibility" in our society. Rich
speaks of the struggle to find a voice
for herself and others in patriar-
chally-founded language. Best of all,
the poet reveals how language cre-
ates reality, as she works toward
transforming her own words into a a
breakthrough in understanding, shat-
tering predjudices and age-old masks,
to form a community based in free-
dom of individual expression for
men and women everywhere.
ADRIENNE RICh will read at
Rackham this Sunday at 7:30 p.m.
Student tickets are $5, others $8,
and are available at Hillel, 1429
Hill. Call 769-0500 for information.
Waiting for Lefty, "A play in
six scenes, based on the New York
City taxi strike of February, 1934,"
written by Clifford Odets, is being
presented this weekend by Basement
Arts. The play, full of social com-
mentary, runs today and tomorrow at
5 p.m. at the Arena Theatre in the
Frieze Building.
The Ann Arbor Spring Art Fair
takes place tomorrow and Sunday at
the University Track and Tennis
Building, behind Yost Arena.
Craftspeople from near and far will
be presenting their work at this
show. Hours for the show are 10
a.m. to 8 p.m. tomorrow, 11 a.m.
to 6 p.m. Sunday. This is a good
opportunity for those who are dis-
couraged by summer's hucksterfest
brouhaha.
Friars out of focus
The Friars 34th annual Best Concert Ever is fast approaching. Chances
are they will sing some of their old favorites and they will be more
dressed up than this, too. There are actually eight of these guys but
you'll have to attend the concert to see the missing link. The concert is
at 8 p.m. Saturday in Rackham Auditorium. Tickets are $4, available at
Ticketmaster and at the door.
Soviet rockers come to US
"The day they machine-gun the royal family I'll comb my hair and put a
tie on," says the generally genial Cyril Bender (Philip Davis), motor-bike
courier, to his aging Mum. In Thacher's Britain that's not likely. But if Mrs.
Bender will always find it hard to accept her son's scruffiness, Cyril has
long ago given up hope that socialist invective is going to put the world to
rights.
Mrs. Bender, who is constantly harassed by her shrill, leopard-skin clad,
nouveau-riche daughter Valerie, lives in the last council house on a recently
gentrified street. Her Sloane Ranger neighbors, the Boothe-Branes, go to the
country on weekends to shoot pheasant, and they regress to baby talk -
"Where Mr. Sausage?"- during their sexual antics on weekdays. The
unfortunate Cyril and his girlfriend Shirley (Ruth Sheen) give directions to a
hapless yokel from Surrey who is looking for his sister - "Vivian, do you
know her?" -- and the lad keeps on popping back up to plague them. It's
not that he's afraid to go back home without a job, he tells them, it's just
that his Mum's still mad because he bought pork pies instead of steak and
kidney.
Written and directed by Mike Leigh (Abigail's Party), High Hopes is a
gently ironic political commentary about Britain in the '80s. There are
moments of tenderness, pathos and despair but mostly it's a social satire
with a human face in which the bigotry of the established middle classes
confronts the silliness of social climbers. It's delightfully funny. The Ann
Arbor Film Co-op is showing it Saturday at 7:30 and 9:30 p.m at MLB 4.
-Sharon Grimberg
by Alyssa Katz
SO far, the Soviet-U.S. musical
exchange has consisted of Billy Joel
going there and glammers Gorky
Park coming here. Big deal. A bunch
of promoters get to line their pock-
ets and listeners all over the world
get the message that really, we're all
alike (read: the Soviets want to be
just like us groovy cool Americans
and, due to an inherent lack of cre-
ativity, have nothing better to do
than copy western. music). Finally,
though, instead of just dropping big
names, people are starting to explore
the possibilities of a more serious
musical exchange. PAGANEL, a
student cultural organization based at
Moscow State University, has
started Surface to Surface, a grass-
roots program that facilitates visits
to the USSR by American perform-
ers. Bart Casad, a Rackham student,
visited the Soviet Union last Octo-
ber and was inspired to establish a
Surface to Surface project back
home.
This weekend, the Ann Arbor
community will reap the benefits of
Casad's initiative. The local group
Free Association is holding a benefit
concert on Saturday with a twofold
purpose: to raise money for Soviet-
American musical exchanges and to
present a fruit of the effort, the
Moscow band Gaza. WCBN DJ Joe
Tiboni, a member of Free Associa-
tion, said that he hasn't heard the
band yet, but, "Whether they'll
sound like Captain Dave or Frank
Allison and the Odd Sox or Anne B.
Davis we'll have yet to see. The im-
portant thing is that these guys are
musicians who grew up in the So-
viet Union and that we get to meet
these people." If you want to play a
part in the exchange and have an ex-
tra bed, you might want to help
house the band. They will be in
town for at least a month.
Free Association hopes to send
Ann Arbor bands to the Soviet
Union eventually, but Tiboni said
the group couldn't decide which
bands to send. "We'll cross that
bridge when we come to it," Tiboni
said. It shouldn't be too difficult,'
though, as Tiboni explained, "The
Soviets have a lot of rubles because
they don't have anything to spend
them on."
The SURFACE TO SURFACE
BENEFIT, featuring Gaza, takes
place Saturday at 7 p.m. at
Schwaben Hall, 217 S. Ashley.
Tickets are $7. Also performing at
the benefit will be Frank Allison
and the Odd Sox, As Is (Ambient),
The Bluefields and Mr. Largebeat
Existence. If you want to help house
Gaza, call Nick or Bart at 66.5-
7259.
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Have science classes
caused you to doubt the
existence of God?
The following University of Michigan Professors and
Researchers challenge you to re-examine this issue
through the research presented at this lecture.
Scientific Evidence for the
Existence of God
Dr. Walter Bradley, PhD., Materials Science
Chairman of the Department of Mechanical Engineering
Professor and Senior TEES Research Fellow
at Texas A&M University
Monday, April 2, 1990,7:00 pm
Natural Science Auditorium
Dr. Bill Burkel, Medical School
Dr. Francis Collins, Internal Medicine/Human Genetics
Dr. Martin Gaskell, Astronomy
Dr. Merle Jaarda, Dentistry
Dr. Bill Kuhn, Atmospheric, Oceanic, & Space Sciences
Dr. Dale Lefever, Family Practice
Dr. Jim Lepkowski, Biostatistics
Dr. Kenneth Ludema, Mechanical Engineering
Dr. Herman Merte, Mechanical Engineering
Dr. Richard Patterson, Natural Resources
Jim Richardson, Women's Swimming Coach, Athletics
Dr. Rudy Richardson, Toxicology
Dr. Phil Savage, Chemical Engineering
Dr. Dan Snyder, Dentistry
Dr. Wayne Stark, Electrical Engineering & Computer Sciences
Dr. David Starks, CRLT
Dr. Vern Terpstra, Graduate School of Business
Twenty years ago, he
won for UofM
students the right to
vote in Ann Arbor.
Now he needs your help.
Vote for David CoDi