The Unslept Unsleeping Elsewhere: Radical Contemporaneity in the Last Poems of Adrienne Rich

Year 2018, Issue: 49, 101 - 130, 01.10.2018

Prakash Konac

Abstract

There are two perspectives on the commoditized present: one, a reified now which is based on a perpetual holiday from social reality and another, a radical contemporaneity which embraces the “foreverness” of the present through a commitment to change. The notion of contemporaneity in Adrienne Rich’s poems written from 2005 onwards especially the volume titled TNPWS: Poems: 2007-2010 responds ethically and politically to the market version of the eternalized ‘now’ which is self-induced forgetting. In choosing to be part of a political community, the contemporary in Adrienne Rich embraces the now as a life lived through, in and for the others. The sense of being one with the age in which you live through its social and political problems and the demand that these issues be addressed dominate Adrienne Rich’s poetpersona in her last work. Illness and coming of death offer an insight into the nature of the contemporaneous; they throw light on the idea that the present continues as life moves from the past into the future. In contrast to a notion of the “contemporary” as one who forgets and then drifts into nostalgia, the contemporary in Rich is one who, though falling asleep, is “not oblivious/ of the unslept unsleeping/ elsewhere.”

Keywords

Contemporaneity, history, poverty, sickness, radica

Başka Yerlerdeki Uyumayan Uyumamışlar: Adrienne Rich’in Son Dönem Şiirlerinde Radikal Eşzamanlılık

Abstract

Metalaştırılmış şimdiki zamana yönelik iki bakış açısı vardır. İlki, sosyal gerçeklikten ve başkalarından ebedi uzaklaşmaya dayanan şeyleşmiş şimdi; ikincisi ise içinde bulunulan anın “ebediyetini” değişime adanmışlıkla kucaklayan radikal eşzamanlılıktır. Adrienne Rich’in 2005 sonrası şiirlerinde, özellikle TNPWS: Şiirler: 2007-2010 başlıklı eserinde, eşzamanlılık kavramı pazarlanmakta olan ve tercihe bağlı unutma olarak da düşünülebilecek ebedileştirilmiş “şimdi”ye etik ve politik bir tepkidir. Bu şiirlerdeki çağdaş persona, politik bir topluluğun üyesi olma seçimiyle, şimdiyi geçirilen, içinde olunan ve başkaları için yaşanan bir hayat olarak kabul eder. Ele alınmasını istediği sosyal ve politik sorunların yaşandığı dönemle bir olma Adrienne Rich’in son eserindeki şiir personalarında baskın bir eğilimdir. Hastalık ve yaklaşan ölüm eşzamanlılığın doğasını kavramaya yardımcı olur; hayat geçmişten geleceğe ilerlerken, şimdiki zamanın eşzamanlı olarak devam etmekte olduğu düşüncesine ışık tutar. Unutan ve nostaljiye kapılan “çağdaş” kişi kavramının aksine, Rich’in çağdaş personası uykuya dalsa bile “bihaber değildir/başka yerlerdeki/uyumayan uyumamışlardan.”

Keywords

Eşzamanlılık, tarih, yoksulluk, hastalık, radikal

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