The poet, Adrianne Rich, uses a sense of time to express deep emotions in her art works. In the case of the two poems, “In the Evening” and “In Those Years”, time is used to tell the readers what she feels about her relationship on life and love. Also, there seems to be a general theme of sadness in her poems, and even of regret on certain things that have been lost as many years pass in her lifetime.
In “In Those Years”, Rich tells the feeling of losing mutual love as they grow older. This is seen in the line “In those years, people will say, we lost track of the meaning of we” (In Those Years), which suggest that there was once was mutual or shared love between her and her lover. However, the love they shared soon faded away, which she expresses in the lines “They were headed somewherealong the shorewhere we stood, saying I” (In Those Years). This shows that ‘time’ is used in this poem to express sadness over a lost love.
In the case of the poem, “In The Evening”, time is used here to communicate two things: being forced to continue with a relationship despite of lost love, and that time will keep on moving even if she wanted it to stop because of her sadness. The first argument is seen in the line “Your hand grips mine like a railing on an icy night” (In The Evening”), while the desire to stop the time in the line “The moon, cracked every which-way, pushes steadily on” (In The Evening). In both of these cases, evening is used to symbolize sorrow and agony of a fading love.
Works cited
Rich, Adrienne. In The Evening. Best Poems Encyclopedia, 2014. Web. 8 June 2015.
Rich, Adrienne. In Those Years. Best Poems Encyclopedia, 2014. Web. 8 June 2015.
