Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

In the fifteenth poem from Adrienne Cecile Rich's seminal collection "Twenty-One Love Poems," the intricacies of love and responsibility are dissected through the prism of nature and choice. The speaker and her lover find themselves on a beach, a setting often associated with idyllic romance. However, this is no ordinary lovers' getaway: nature intervenes in the form of sand driven against them by the wind. This force of nature serves as an external manifestation of the challenges inherent in relationships, challenges that can feel as if they are "against us."

In the face of this difficulty, the couple relocates, only to encounter narrow beds "like prisoners' cots," a striking image that suggests limitation and constraint. Even when they try to escape one uncomfortable circumstance, they find themselves in another. The question that arises, "was the failure ours?" touches the core issue of accountability within the relational dynamics. Is love a construct that we can control, or are there elements, much like the wind and narrow beds, that dictate the terms?

Rich takes this pondering a step further with the lines, "If I cling to circumstances I could feel / not responsible. Only she who says / she did not choose, is the loser in the end." Here, the speaker confronts the idea of agency in love and in life. To blame circumstances for one's relational failures is to relinquish control, to say one "did not choose." The speaker implies that the sense of failure in love might arise not from external challenges but from an unwillingness to take responsibility for one's choices or lack thereof.

While the poem seems to question the nature of commitment and responsibility, it also captures the difficulty of sustaining intimacy and emotional closeness amidst life's mundane yet taxing challenges. Rich's exploration of the situation serves as a microcosm of relational dynamics, a commentary on how the external world can seep into the most personal corners of our lives, challenging our perceptions of control, choice, and ultimately, love.

What Rich crafts is not just an account of a romantic relationship but an interrogation of human agency. The choices we make-or don't make-in the face of nature, circumstance, and confinement reveal much about our understanding of commitment, accountability, and the degree to which we are willing to own our lives. It suggests that true intimacy demands not just love but the willingness to confront, together or alone, the challenges that life inevitably brings.

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