I know you are reading this poem
late, before leaving your office
of the one intense yellow lamp-spot and the darkening window
in the lassitude of a building faded to quiet
long after rush-hour. I know you are reading this poem
standing up in a bookstore far from the ocean
on a grey day of early spring, faint flakes driven
across the plains' enormous spaces around you.
I know you are reading this poem
in a room where too much has happened for you to bear
where the bedclothes lie in stagnant coils on the bed
and the open valise speaks of flight
but you cannot leave yet. I know you are reading this poem
as the underground train loses momentum and before running
up the stairs
toward a new kind of love
your life has never allowed.
I know you are reading this poem by the light
of the television screen where soundless images jerk and slide
while you wait for the newscast from the intifada.
I know you are reading this poem in a waiting-room
of eyes met and unmeeting, of identity with strangers.
I know you are reading this poem by fluorescent light
in the boredom and fatigue of the young who are counted out,
count themselves out, at too early an age. I know
you are reading this poem through your failing sight, the thick
lens enlarging these letters beyond all meaning yet you read on
because even the alphabet is precious.
I know you are reading this poem as you pace beside the stove
warming milk, a crying child on your shoulder, a book in your
hand
because life is short and you too are thirsty.
I know you are reading this poem which is not in your language
guessing at some words while others keep you reading
and I want to know which words they are.
I know you are reading this poem listening for something, torn
between bitterness and hope
turning back once again to the task you cannot refuse.
I know you are reading this poem because there is nothing else
left to read
there where you have landed, stripped as you are.
✦
Analysis
From an Atlas of the Difficult World: analysis
Introduction
This poem speaks directly to the person reading it. Again and again it says, "I know you are reading this poem," and each time it pictures a different reader in a different place. The readers are tired, grieving, poor, far from home or about to change their lives.
The poem is a catalogue of hard lives, joined by the act of reading. It suggests that people turn to poems when little else is left. The word From in the title suggests a passage taken from a longer work. The atlas of the title becomes a map of these scattered readers.
Summary
The poem is a single stanza. It first imagines a reader in an office late in the day, under "the one intense yellow lamp-spot." Then it pictures someone standing in a bookstore on the plains, far from the ocean, on a grey spring day. Faint snow blows across the open spaces outside.
Next comes a reader in a room "where too much has happened for you to bear." The bedclothes lie in coils and an open valise suggests escape. But this reader "cannot leave yet." Another reader rides an underground train toward "a new kind of love" that life has not allowed before.
A reader waits for news "from the intifada" by the light of a silent television. Another sits in a waiting-room among strangers. Young people who are "counted out" read under fluorescent light. An older reader, with failing sight, reads through a thick lens "because even the alphabet is precious."
A parent paces by the stove, warming milk, with a crying child and a book. The poem says this reader reads "because life is short and you too are thirsty." Another reads the poem in a language not their own. The speaker says, "I want to know which words they are."
Near the end, a reader listens for something, "torn / between bitterness and hope," before returning to an unavoidable task. The last reader reads because there is "nothing else" left to read. That reader is somewhere they have landed, "stripped as you are."
Themes and meaning
Reading appears as a basic need. The parent at the stove reads "because life is short and you too are thirsty." The reader with failing sight goes on because "even the alphabet is precious." The final reader has nothing else to read. The poem treats a poem less as a luxury than as food or water.
Hardship links the readers. One is in a room where too much has happened. Others are exhausted, "counted out," losing their sight, or waiting for news of conflict. The last is "stripped" of everything. The poem gathers people whose lives are difficult, which fits the difficult world of the title.
The speaker reaches out to strangers. The repeated "I know" claims a closeness with people the speaker cannot see. Line 22 names "identity with strangers" in a waiting-room. The speaker also wants to learn from the reader: "I want to know which words they are." The poem can be read as a bridge between writer and reader, built in both directions.
The poem maps many places. It moves from an office to the plains, a train, a kitchen and a waiting-room. This range makes the poem an atlas of situations rather than of countries. Each place is given with a precise physical detail, such as the soundless images on a television.
The poem also holds out change and hope. One reader runs toward "a new kind of love." Another is "torn / between bitterness and hope." The poem does not promise that reading will fix these lives. It says only that the reading happens, and that it matters.
Tone
The tone is intimate and attentive. The speaker addresses "you" directly and describes each scene with care. The repeated "I know" sounds confident, even insistent, yet it is also tender.
Sympathy deepens as the poem goes on. The young "count themselves out, at too early an age," which the speaker clearly regrets. The reader with failing sight is shown with respect rather than pity.
At line 35 the tone turns curious and humble. The speaker, who has claimed to know so much, now wants to learn. The ending is sober. The final reader is "stripped," and the poem closes on that bare state without comfort.
Form and structure
The poem is 41 lines of free verse in 1 stanza. There is no rhyme scheme and no regular metre. Line lengths vary widely, from 1 to 16 syllables.
The main structural device is the refrain "I know you are reading this poem." Sometimes it opens a line. Sometimes it begins after a full stop in mid-line, so each new reader interrupts the last. Long lines carry detailed scenes, while short lines drop off at the end of a sentence. The unbroken single stanza lets the readers run together into one crowd.
Poetic devices
anaphora line 1
I know you are reading this poem The opening words recur throughout. Each repetition introduces a new reader and builds the catalogue.
imagery line 3
the one intense yellow lamp-spot and the darkening window Light and dark frame a late, lonely office. The detail sets the pattern of precise scenes.
personification line 12
the open valise speaks of flight The packed case seems to speak. It shows a wish to escape that the reader cannot yet act on.
antithesis line 22
of eyes met and unmeeting Strangers look at and away from one another. The phrase captures closeness and distance in the same room.
polyptoton line 25
count themselves out The phrase turns counted out from line 24 into an act the young do to themselves. Outside judgment becomes self-judgment.
metaphor line 32
you too are thirsty The need for poems becomes thirst. Reading is placed among basic bodily needs.
direct address line 35
and I want to know which words they are The speaker asks something of the reader. The one-way address becomes a wish for exchange.
enjambment line 36
listening for something, torn The line breaks on torn, so the reader is left hanging before bitterness and hope. The break acts out the division.
ambiguity line 41
stripped as you are Stripped may mean robbed, bereaved or simply bare. The poem leaves the loss unnamed.
Words worth knowing
lassitude
Weariness or lack of energy. Here the building itself seems tired.
valise
A small travelling case or suitcase.
intifada
An Arabic word meaning uprising, used for Palestinian uprisings against Israeli occupation. The reader waits for news of that conflict.
counted out
Written off or excluded, as a boxer is counted out when unable to rise.
Context
The poem has been on americanpoems.com since 2004. Readers left 5 comments on it between 2004 and 2006. Several of them describe finding themselves among the readers the poem imagines.
What readers have said
Ed Eckel, writing as a new father, sees the poem capturing how people take poetry wherever they can, even while holding a crying baby. Ed Eckel, 2004
Kathrin calls it a poem about reading poems and notes that one of its situations matched this reader's own reading. Kathrin, 2005
Div argues that the poem addresses a smaller audience than a first reading suggests, and that the title and final line imply great struggle. Div, 2005
Margarita says the poem made this reader feel understood but not violated. Margarita, 2005
Mary agrees it seems a poem about reading poems, then asks whether it is really something more. Mary, 2006
This poem so beautifully and powerfully captures the deep need we humans have for poetry, how we will get it wherever we can, however we can, even while heating milk on the stove, holding our crying baby. (I certainly can understand this need, being a new father myself.)
KathrinGermany
This poem is so fascinating because it interacts with the reader. One of the situation described my reading of the poem. It is a poem about reading poems. And it celebrates the word, the single letter, language so to speak. It also shows how we need poetry like we need food. I found that rather interesting as you often think of poetry as something special not something you would read while heating milk.
DivUnited States
I think this piece is so powerful because it can be universalized, anyone can see themselves in her explanation of their need for poetry, but she was actually addressing a much smaller audience than a first reading would imply. There are levels to her audience and levels of meaning to be read in the poem. The title and the final line imply great struggle, beyond (I think) the mundane struggles of the every day…
Read the whole comment
I think this piece is so powerful because it can be universalized, anyone can see themselves in her explanation of their need for poetry, but she was actually addressing a much smaller audience than a first reading would imply. There are levels to her audience and levels of meaning to be read in the poem.
The title and the final line imply great struggle, beyond (I think) the mundane struggles of the every day consumer of poetry. Adrienne Rich was an extremely astute lesbian feminist poet and she very well may be speaking to women, or specifically lesbians in this poem. The need for a life-narrative (an alternative to the hetero-norm) that makes sense, and the need for an expression of that marginal and oppressed existence in literature of some kind (specifically poetry) may be what she is communicating in this poem. Not only do humans need poetry, but women need the poetry of other women, and lesbians need the poetry of other lesbians. This intense need for community and community narratives gives deeper meaning to the diverse situations in which we find ourselves connecting with poetry, and Adrienne Rich communicates it through her poem without excluding other audience members from the experience. That's a powerful expression of the connectedness of a community of humans that actually privileges the marginal without excluding the mainstream audience.
MargaritaCanada
I haven't felt so loved since my last visit to the health clinic. Really. It's a bit of a story.
This poem made me feel *understood*, but not at all violated.
MaryUnited States
THis poem has meaning beyond the surface meaning. It holds power over the reader, pulling you in like your a child on a playground. Antisipating what you want to play on next. Reading this poem takes you in and guess what... you dont mind it. Its a poem about reading poems...or is it?
This poem so beautifully and powerfully captures the deep need we humans have for poetry, how we will get it wherever we can, however we can, even while heating milk on the stove, holding our crying baby. (I certainly can understand this need, being a new father myself.)
This poem is so fascinating because it interacts with the reader. One of the situation described my reading of the poem. It is a poem about reading poems. And it celebrates the word, the single letter, language so to speak. It also shows how we need poetry like we need food. I found that rather interesting as you often think of poetry as something special not something you would read while heating milk.
I think this piece is so powerful because it can be universalized, anyone can see themselves in her explanation of their need for poetry, but she was actually addressing a much smaller audience than a first reading would imply. There are levels to her audience and levels of meaning to be read in the poem. The title and the final line imply great struggle, beyond (I think) the mundane struggles of the every day…
Read the whole commentI think this piece is so powerful because it can be universalized, anyone can see themselves in her explanation of their need for poetry, but she was actually addressing a much smaller audience than a first reading would imply. There are levels to her audience and levels of meaning to be read in the poem.
The title and the final line imply great struggle, beyond (I think) the mundane struggles of the every day consumer of poetry. Adrienne Rich was an extremely astute lesbian feminist poet and she very well may be speaking to women, or specifically lesbians in this poem. The need for a life-narrative (an alternative to the hetero-norm) that makes sense, and the need for an expression of that marginal and oppressed existence in literature of some kind (specifically poetry) may be what she is communicating in this poem. Not only do humans need poetry, but women need the poetry of other women, and lesbians need the poetry of other lesbians. This intense need for community and community narratives gives deeper meaning to the diverse situations in which we find ourselves connecting with poetry, and Adrienne Rich communicates it through her poem without excluding other audience members from the experience. That's a powerful expression of the connectedness of a community of humans that actually privileges the marginal without excluding the mainstream audience.
I haven't felt so loved since my last visit to the health clinic. Really. It's a bit of a story.
This poem made me feel *understood*, but not at all violated.
THis poem has meaning beyond the surface meaning. It holds power over the reader, pulling you in like your a child on a playground. Antisipating what you want to play on next. Reading this poem takes you in and guess what... you dont mind it. Its a poem about reading poems...or is it?