. >> adrienne rich burst on the literary scene in the '50s, a passionate political activist, feminist. adrienne rich, who said, "art means nothing if it simply decorates the dinner table of the power which holds it hostage. >> there's a place between two stands of trees where the grass grows uphill and the old revolutionary road breaks off into shadows near a meeting-house abandoned by the persecuted who disappeared into those shadows. i've walked there picking mushrooms at the edge of dread, but don't be fooled this isn't a russian poem, this is not somewhere else but here, our country moving closer to its own truth and dread, its own ways of making people disappear. i won't tell you where the place is, the dark mesh of the woods meeting the unmarked strip of light-- ghost-ridden crossroads, leafmold paradise: i know already who wants to buy it, sell it, make it disappear. and i won't tell you where it is, so why do i tell you anything? because you still listen, because in times like these to have you listen at all, it's necessary to talk about trees. ( applause )