Amends Essay Questions

Discuss the structure of “Amends.” Why is it unusual? How does it help Rich develop the poem’s themes?

After the first three lines, “Amends” is structured as a list of everything the moonlight touches. Rather than describing each aspect of the landscape individually, Rich ties together each part of the landscape through the light they share. This changes the way the poem sounds: it is quite repetitive, almost like a song. The repetition of the same syntax between phrases, as well as the short phrase “as it,” suggests some inherent similarity between the many things the poem describes. This emphasizes that each part of the world is connected to every other part: beauty somewhere is touched by violence elsewhere.

Choose one image from “Amends” and analyze its significance.

In the second stanza, Rich describes the moonlight “as it licks the broken ledge.” The adjective “broken” suggests that something has been harmed. In the third stanza, it’s explicit that mining has cut the gash in the land. However, with the ledge, Rich never tells us who broke the ledge, or even whether this breaking is unnatural. Instead, she merely suggests that damage and violence are present everywhere, even in beautiful natural places. The moon responds to this damage by licking the ledge. The action of licking partly seems like a form of comfort, as when a cat licks a wound. However, it also suggests eroticism, especially lesbian eroticism. In this way, Rich develops the conventional feminization of the moon by elevating lesbian womanhood as a way of extending comfort and care to the land.