This is Episode 59 of Poems for the Speed of Life. Today's poem is "Integrity", by Adrienne Rich.

Adrienne Rich was an American poet, essayist and feminist. She published more than 20 collections in her lifetime: her first in her early 20s in 1951 and her last, well over half a century later, in 2010, just two years before her death at the age of 82.

TS Eliot said that genuine poetry can communicate before it’s understood, and that was the way this poem, "Integrity", worked for me. 

I’ve read it a number of times now, and I’m still peeling back the layers of its meaning. At its heart, it says something about all the different parts of ourselves, our idiosyncrasies and hypocrisies, the values and desires that compete within us and which, together, add up to who we are and make us whole.

This is the second an Adrienne Rich poem has featured on this podcast. You can find Episode 20, "Toward the Solstice" here, or by scrolling through the archive in your podcast player.

You can read "Integrity" here

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