Planetarium by Adrienne Rich
"Planetarium," a poem by Adrienne Rich, consists of forty-five lines of free verse inspired by the historical contributions of astronomer Caroline Herschel. The poem begins by referencing ancient constellations and their mythological associations, including a metaphorical "monster in the shape of a woman." Rich highlights Herschel’s achievements, noting her discovery of eight comets and suggesting a shared connection among women through the phrase "She whom the moon ruled/ like us." The imagery in the poem blends the cosmic with the personal, illustrating how women, historically marginalized, are linked to celestial phenomena.
Rich shifts from a focus on Herschel to her own voice, culminating in a declaration that "seeing is changing," which emphasizes the transformative power of perception. The poem’s structure, characterized by irregular groupings of lines, mirrors its themes of fragmentation and interconnectedness. Rich ultimately redefines herself as a creator, stating she is "an instrument in the shape of a woman," highlighting the importance of observation and the re-examination of identity in the context of both history and myth. Through its exploration of astronomy as a metaphor for truth-seeking, "Planetarium" intertwines cosmic imagery with the personal journey of self-discovery.
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Planetarium by Adrienne Rich
First published: 1971, in The Will to Change
Type of poem: Lyric
The Poem
“Planetarium” is a forty-five-line poem in free verse that was prompted by a visit to a planetarium during which Adrienne Rich read about the work of astronomer Caroline Herschel (1750-1848). Herschel had worked with her brother William, the discoverer of Uranus, and later worked on her own. The poem is in “free” verse only in that its groupings of lines and phrases are irregular; they are actually carefully arranged to emphasize the progression of observations and thoughts that make up the poem.
The opening lines refer to the constellations, their shapes identified since ancient times with mythological beings; among them is “a monster in the shape of a woman.” Then Rich moves to a real woman, Caroline Herschel, and quotes from a description of her working with scientific instruments; Herschel, she notes, discovered eight comets. In seven words, Rich deftly points out a kinship among Herschel, herself, and all women: “She whom the moon ruled/ like us.” In a description that sounds like a metaphor but is based on the fact that astronomers often observed from cages that were raised high in the air within the observatory to allow them to see through the telescope, Herschel is seen “levitating into the night sky” and “riding” the lenses.
Rich links the mythological women in the heavens with all women; all are serving “penance,” and it is implied that the penance is being demanded by the men who created the myths and named the constellations. Another quotation appears, this one of astronomer Tycho Brahe speaking of his own observations. Brahe, in 1573, discovered the “NOVA,” the “new star” in Cassiopeia (actually a star that, in the final stage of its existence, had expanded to thousands of times its original size). Rich relates the nova to women (“us”), the life exploding outward from them.
The poem then shifts subtly in tone, as the speaker (presumably Rich herself) gradually moves into the foreground, leading to the forceful declaration of personal vision that concludes the poem. “What we see, we see,” Rich states, then, crucially, “and seeing is changing.” She sees a paradox of power and delicacy; she sees a joining of the cosmic and the minuscule (and the inanimate and the animate). Light can destroy a mountain yet not hurt a person; the pulsar and her own heartbeat combine in her body.
Line 34 stands alone in the poem, and it acts as both a pronouncement of strength (“I stand”) and a pause before the final section—eleven lines that run together, broken only by brief pauses within the lines. In the final section, Rich attempts to define herself anew, apart from history and old mythologies. She is a deep galactic cloud; she stands in the path of signals, an “untranslatable language.” Discarding the ancient celestial monster/woman of line 2, she declares herself “an instrument in the shape of a woman.” That is, she is a writer, a creator of “images,” trying to make sense of her own observations and experiences; moreover, since “seeing is changing,” she is reconstructing—as she realizes she must—the way she views herself and the world.
Forms and Devices
The groupings of lines in “Planetarium” are too irregular to be called stanzas; they are clusters of lines grouped according to separate thoughts, observations, and quotations. The fact that the words “An eye” have a line to themselves, for example, hints at the importance of vision (and re-vision) in the poem. The poem is dated 1968 (Rich regularly puts the year of composition at the end of her poems), and a number of poems dated 1968 in Leaflets (1969) and The Will to Change use structures similar to that of “Planetarium.” The poems also have spaces within the lines that add to the fragmentation of the thoughts being expressed. The reader senses hesitations, directions being pondered, options being weighed:
Galaxies of women, there
The density of the poem’s closing group of eleven lines presents a rush of thoughts, with occasional pauses in midline that seem to be pauses for breath as well as momentary breaks in the sudden forward movement of connected ideas. The density also reflects the content, mirroring Rich’s depiction of herself as an “involuted” galactic cloud through which it has taken light fifteen years to travel.
In many of her poems of the late 1960’s, Rich combines the cosmic and the personal; the words that unite the two can often be applied to astronomy, physics, and communication. In “Planetarium,” one finds impulses of light, a “radio impulse” from Taurus, “signals,” and “pulsations.” In “The Demon Lover” (1966), in a figure similar to the one in “Planetarium” that unites heart and pulsar, a “nebula/ opens in space, unseen,/ your heart utters its great beats/ in solitude.” Immediately preceding “The Demon Lover” in Leaflets is a Rich translation of a Gerrit Achterberg poem named for the Dwingelo observatory in Holland: “signals” are coming from constellations, “the void” whispers in the radio telescope, and “the singing of your nerves is gathered.” In “Implosions,” Rich offers the “word” of her pulse and asks the person she addresses to “Send out your signals.”
Astronomy for Rich is, in one sense, a metaphor for the search for truth—particularly for the attempt to discover a new truth. The night sky, with its constellations (in the poem “Orion” and the “Dwingelo” translation as well as here), contains both the old myths and the potential for overturning those myths. The fact that astronomy involves studying pulses and signals also unites it with both the physical body and communication—and therefore with language, the instrument of the poet.
Bibliography
Dickie, Margaret. Stein, Bishop, and Rich: Lyrics of Love, War, and Peace. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997.
Gwiazda, Piotr. “’Nothing Else Left to Read’: Poetry and Audience in Adrienne Rich’s ’An Atlas of the Difficult World.’” Journal of Modern Literature 28, no. 2 (Winter, 2005): 165-188.
Halpern, Nick. Everyday and Prophetic: The Poetry of Lowell, Ammons, Merrill, and Rich. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2003.
Keyes, Claire. The Aesthetics of Power: The Poetry of Adrienne Rich. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1986.
O’Reilly, Andrea. From Motherhood and Mothering: The Legacy of Adrienne Rich’s “Of Woman Born.” New York: State University of New York Press, 2004.
Ostriker, Alice. Writing Like a Woman. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1983.
Spencer, Luke. “That Light of Outrage: The Historicism of Adrienne Rich.” English: Journal of the English Association 51, no. 200 (Summer, 2002): 145-160.
Yorke, Liz. Adrienne Rich: Passion, Politics, and the Body. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publications, 1998.