The Full Text of “What Kind of Times Are These”
The Full Text of “What Kind of Times Are These”
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“What Kind of Times Are These” Introduction
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"What Kind of Times Are These," written in 1991 by the American poet Adrienne Rich, considers the role of politics in poetry (and vice versa). The speaker describes an abandoned house in the woods where "persecuted" people once met. The speaker refuses to reveal the location of this "place," beyond stating that it exists within "our" own country, in order to prevent those in power from commodifying or destroying it. Rich's poem responds to a 1939 poem by the German writer Berthold Brecht, which argued that it was "almost a crime" to "talk about trees" when there were so many atrocities happening in the world (i.e., the rise of the Nazi party and WWII). Rich's poem counters that talking about trees is "necessary" to make people pay attention to poetry at all. By this, Rich might mean that it's important for poets to disguise difficult truths behind more traditionally inviting subjects (like nature), and/or that such subjects are inherently political because nothing exists in isolation; all poetry is inextricable from its surroundings.
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“What Kind of Times Are These” Summary
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The speaker describes a grassy hill sandwiched by trees, where a road that dates back to the revolution vanishes into darkness. Nearby is an abandoned house that was once used by persecuted people to gather in secret; those people have since vanished into the darkness as well.
The speaker has scavenged for mushrooms in this place, which exists at the border of fear. The speaker wants readers to understand that this poem isn't about Russia; the place the speaker describes is right here, in the speaker and reader's shared country, which is closing in on the fearsome truth about itself and developing its own methods for getting rid of people it doesn't like.
The speaker refuses to tell readers where, exactly, this place is located, this place where the dark web of the trees' overlapping branches intersects with a nameless strip of light—an intersection filled with ghosts, a heaven of rotting leaves. The speaker is well aware that there are certain people who'd like to own this place, commodify it, or erase it altogether.
The speaker again refuses to reveal the location of this place, which might make the reader wonder why they bother saying anything at all. The speaker says they talk because the reader is still paying attention and that, in order for people to pay attention in times such as the ones they're living in, they have to focus on the trees.
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“What Kind of Times Are These” Themes
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Poetry and Politics
"What Kind of Times Are These" alludes to German poet Bertolt Brecht's 1939 poem "To Those Who Follow," which relays his fear that writing about nature and beauty—the things that normally move poets—was irresponsible in a time of great suffering. Writing under the Nazi regime, Brecht felt that poets had a duty to speak out against this violence, not hide away in poems about nature. Lamenting the state of the world, he wrote, "What times are these, in which / A conversation about trees is almost a crime," because in talking about the trees, poets "maintain [their] silence about so much wrongdoing!"
Rich's poem likewise describes dangerous times, yet it reaches a different conclusion: in this environment, the speaker implies, poetry can become a kind of refuge—like a "meeting-house" in the woods where the oppressed can share ideas without facing immediate danger. This literary refuge, like the real-life meeting-houses of revolutionaries, is always in danger of being sold out, and thus it's risky for "the persecuted" to have frank conversations about where the country is headed. In order to speak up about state violence and political unrest, then, poets need to keep themselves and their medium safe. They need to frame their "truths" in ways that both lure readers in and throw the powerful off the scent; they need "to talk about trees."
Rich's poem insists that danger is right on readers' doorsteps: the poem is set in "our country," where there's been some form of failed or disrupted rebellion. "The persecuted" once met in an "unmarked" place near "the woods," presumably organizing this rebellion by "the old revolutionary road." Eventually, they "disappeared [into shadows]" after "abandoning" their former refuge. This might imply that the meeting-house had been compromised in some way and that the rebellion subsequently fizzled.
The speaker suggests that poetry, too, could be turned into an industry in which nothing real or risky can be communicated. As if already sensing this threat, the speaker communicates in a kind of code, "talk[ing] about trees" as a way of engaging the reader in the first place. The implication is that, if the speaker spoke in "revolutionary" terms or told certain kinds of truth point blank, they would risk turning readers away and/or revealing poetry to be the radical "place" that it is—and thus put themselves in danger.
It isn't clear what form this danger would take, but in general, poetry would no longer be a safe place to express certain feelings or ideas. As such, the poem echoes Emily Dickinson’s famous instruction to "Tell all the truth but tell it slant." That is, poems should deliver revolutionary truths but disguise them behind more innocuous, traditional, or inviting subjects, like "trees"—both to lure readers in and so that the poet's true intentions aren't immediately snuffed out by those in power.
Indeed, the speaker says they "won't tell you where the place is," implying that in order to maintain poetry as a safe place for the exchange of difficult ideas, poets must avoid explaining or revealing too much in their poetry. People interested in this kind of truth-telling must seek it out themselves, by paying close attention and "listen[ing]." Someone who's looking for truth will be able to see past the trees, past the disguise, and know they've come to the right place.
It's also possible that Rich isn't differentiating between poetry and politics so starkly here—that she's arguing that art is inherently political because nothing exists in a vacuum. Those "trees" in the first stanza are incidental; they surround, and perhaps shield, the old "meeting-house." Art is always a part of the world in which it is created.
To that end, the declaration that "it's necessary / to talk about trees" might even be an acknowledgment of violence against the earth itself. In this way, Rich suggests that even supposedly simple nature poems are revolutionary when the earth itself is being "persecuted."
Where this theme appears in the poem:- Lines 1-16
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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “What Kind of Times Are These”
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Lines 1-4
There's a place ...
... into those shadows."What Kind of Times Are These" alludes to the 1939 poem "To Those Who Follow in Our Wake," written by the German poet Berthold Brecht at the beginning of World War II. At one point, the speaker of Brecht's poem says:
What times are these, in which
A conversation about trees is almost a crime
For in doing so we maintain our silence about so much wrongdoing!Brecht uses "trees" to represent the beauty and seclusion of nature, which has so often moved poets to write. But Brecht thought it was irresponsible—"almost a crime"—to write about nature when all over his country people were being violently persecuted by the Nazi regime. As far as Brecht was concerned, artists have a responsibility to address what is happening in the world around them.
Rich's poem announces itself as being in conversation with Brecht's through the title, though Rich doesn't make her argument immediately apparent. Instead, "What Kind of Times Are These" opens with a description of "a place between two stands of trees where the grass grows uphill / and the old revolutionary road breaks off into shadows."
Rich's poem thus nods to the "trees" Brecht spoke of, but the trees in Rich's poem aren't exactly removed from what's going on in the world at large. They're part of the setting and, in fact, seem to serve as a kind of cover for some sort of operation: the speaker's mention of an "old revolutionary road" that disappears into the darkness of the woods suggests that these woods were once a haven for revolutionaries, people organizing at a "meeting-house" in order to fight against oppression. Note, too, the use of alliteration in these lines: the /t/ sounds in "two stands of trees," /gr/ sounds in "grass grows," and /r/ sounds in "revolutionary road" creates musicality and emphasis, highlighting the importance of this setting. Right away, then, the speaker is talking about both trees and revolution; poetry, the image might imply, always exists in conversation with its surroundings.
The speaker goes on to say that the "place" they're describing was "abandoned." The "meeting-house" where revolutionaries once met is now empty; both the "road" and the "persecuted" have vanished into the "shadows." Their disappearance implies that their revolution failed. It isn't clear whether the revolutionaries found somewhere else to meet or if they were caught by those who wanted to squash their efforts. In any case, there's a sense of incompletion; it seems this revolution didn't achieve what it set out to achieve.
Note the repetition of the word "shadows" at the ends of lines 2 and 4. This repetition makes this place seem more sinister and threatening; it's a world surrounded by darkness, which perhaps also represents how little the speaker actually knows about what happened. The speaker doesn't know how far the road extends into the woods, nor do they know precisely what became of the people who met here. Their ignorance suggests that those in power were successful in snuffing out the revolution. That these people "disappeared into those shadows" implies that they were effectively silenced—hence the speaker's ignorance of their fate.
Finally, this stanza establishes the poem's form: "What Kind of Times Are These" is made up of four quatrains written in free verse, creating a conversational, direct, and intimate tone. Enjambments across the first few lines of the poem also create momentum, building a sense of urgency right from the poem's start.
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Lines 5-8
I've walked there ...
... making people disappear. -
Lines 9-12
I won't tell ...
... make it disappear. -
Lines 13-16
And I won't ...
... talk about trees.
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“What Kind of Times Are These” Symbols
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The Trees
The trees in Rich's poem are rich with symbolism. On one level, they represent the safety of traditional poetic subjects like the beauty of nature. When the speaker says that one must "talk about the trees," they might be saying that poets must use such subjects to disguise revolutionary ideas and upsetting "truth[s]." In a "country" that can make people "disappear," it may not be safe for "the persecuted" to openly criticize those in power. As such, these people use poetry as a way of speaking in a kind of code. Those who "still listen" closely can hear what the speaker is really saying while those who don't won't look twice at a poem about a forest. Just as the "two stands of trees" enclose that abandoned "meeting-house" in stanza 1, they can form a protective barrier around a poet's revolutionary ideas.
In the Berthold Brecht poem to which Rich's poem responds, the speaker has a different take on talking about trees. To Brecht, writing at the dawn of WWII, focusing on the beauty of nature was "almost a crime" in light of all the evil in the world, a kind of immoral distraction from the horrors facing humanity. But Rich's poem doesn't view the trees as a distraction: things like nature's beauty are a way of making people pay attention to art, and specifically poetry, in the first place. Talk of trees lures people in; the trees represent the way poetry can sneak harsh truths into the world.
It's also possible to read Rich's poem as saying that there isn't a clear separation between the trees and the "truth" about the world in the first place. That "old revolutionary road" and "meeting-house" were located "between" the trees; the trees are part of the image. Perhaps talking about trees also represents the idea that poetry doesn't exist in a vacuum. Poets are part of the world in which they live, and thus their poetry inevitably is a response to that world.
Finally, it's entirely possible that the speaker is also pointing to the necessity of talking about the actual trees. While poets have long turned to nature for inspiration, climate change and deforestation both mean that the source of so much poetic inspiration is in real danger. In this way, the poem might suggest that even seemingly straightforward nature poems are inherently political in a time when nature itself is being "disappeared."
Where this symbol appears in the poem:- Line 1: “There's a place between two stands of trees”
- Line 9: “the dark mesh of the woods”
- Lines 14-16: “because in times like these / to have you listen at all, it's necessary / to talk about trees.”
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The Revolutionary Road and Meeting-House
The "place" that the speaker describes in the first stanza seems like the site of an old, and likely failed, revolution against those in power. The "revolutionary road breaks off into shadows," disappearing into the darkness in a way that suggests that the revolution itself has since broken down—or that the ideals it fought for have been lost. The house where "the persecuted" once met, to plot against their persecutors, is "abandoned" because those people have "disappeared." This place symbolizes a revolutionary movement or spirit that has been snuffed out—but which, with careful tending, can perhaps be brought back to life.
Where this symbol appears in the poem:- Lines 1-4: “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.”
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“What Kind of Times Are These” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language
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Allusion
The poem alludes to German poet Berthold Brecht's 1939 poem, "To Those Who Follow in Our Wake" (also translated as "To Those Born Later"). Written at the start of World War II, Brecht's poem states:
What times are these, in which
A conversation about trees is almost a crime
For in doing so we maintain our silence about so much wrongdoing!To write about "trees"—which Brecht uses as a stand-in for natural beauty more broadly—is to turn away from the oppressive violence happening all around us. Brecht's poem argues that artists have a responsibility to politically engage with their times; writing about "trees" is akin to staying silent in the face of atrocity.
Rich's poem presents a different take. Despite living in an oppressive "country" that has "its own ways of making people disappear," the speaker of this poem doesn't believe the trees are beside the point. On the contrary, "in times like these," the speaker argues, "it's necessary / to talk about trees":
- For one thing, poems about things like the beauty of nature are more likely to lure readers in; people often want to find beauty and escape in art, and so writing about nature is a way to ensure that people engage with a poet's work in the first place.
- Rich's poem further suggests that poets can communicate radical, revolutionary ideas even within a poem about more traditional subjects. Poets may present such ideas as subtext available to those able to read between the lines, yet which fly under the radar of those in power who might otherwise try to censor them.
By alluding so directly to Brecht's poem, Rich places her work within a longstanding conversation about the role of poetry in politics and politics in poetry. She also creates a parallel between the violence happening in her country (the United States) and those that were occurring in Nazi Germany during Brecht's lifetime.
Where allusion appears in the poem:- Lines 14-16: “Because you still listen, because in times like these / to have you listen at all, it's necessary / to talk about trees.”
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Alliteration
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Repetition
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Asyndeton
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Enjambment
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"What Kind of Times Are These" Vocabulary
Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.
- Revolutionary road
- The persecuted
- Mesh
- Ghost-ridden
- Leafmold paradise
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(Location in poem: Line 2: “and the old revolutionary road breaks off into shadows”)
A road used during a revolution or uprising. It's possible Rich is, in part, referring to a road dating back to the American revolution, but the poem itself remains nonspecific.
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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “What Kind of Times Are These”
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Form
"What Kind of Times Are These" is a 16-line, free verse poem arranged into four quatrains (four-line stanzas). The use of free verse makes the poem feel more conversational and direct, even though the speaker is actually withholding specific information from the reader.
Notice, too, the visual impact of the poem on the page: each stanza (except the third) starts out with generally longer lines that get smaller as the stanza progresses. Overall, then, the right margin of the poem is gradually worn away, echoing the "disappear[ances]" of both "persecuted" groups of people as well as the "trees."
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Meter
Like most poems of its era, "What Kind of Times Are These" is written in free verse. This means that it doesn't follow a set meter. Instead, it uses the rhythms of ordinary speech to create something that sounds more true to life. Free verse helps the poem sound intimate, as though the speaker is talking directly to the reader. The lack of meter also makes the poem feel less measured and therefore more urgent, as if something real and serious is at stake (i.e., the future of the "country" the speaker is describing).
Rich's early poems were actually highly formal, but as she grew older and her work became more political, her verse became much looser and more experimental. This poem was written late in her career and reflects her disinterest in keeping with traditions of the past.
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Rhyme Scheme
As a free verse poem, "What Kind of Times Are These" doesn't follow a rhyme scheme. That said, the poem does contain a few end rhymes. In the second stanza, for instance, "here" and "disappear" rhyme, highlighting the fact that the speaker is talking about violence in their own country rather than far away somewhere else. And in the fourth stanza, "these" and "trees" rhyme, making the poem's conclusion sound more emphatic and urgent.
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“What Kind of Times Are These” Speaker
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There is no real distance between the speaker of the poem and Adrienne Rich herself, whose poetry became increasingly political as she grew older. Regardless of whether one interprets the speaker as Rich, however, what's important is that the speaker is a citizen of the "country" in which the poem is set—the same country of the poem's intended audience.
The speaker makes clear that they are not an outside observer and neither is the poem's reader; both are living in a dangerous world that has "its own ways of making people disappear." As such, the speaker needs to choose their words carefully. The speaker also says that they've "walked there," by the old "meeting-house abandoned by the persecuted," which suggests that the speaker has some link to or at least familiarity with "the persecuted" and likely has been persecuted themselves. Taking the speaker as representing Rich herself enhances this reading: Rich was a Jewish lesbian who wrote fiercely about women's oppression.
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“What Kind of Times Are These” Setting
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The poem takes place in "our country." The poem never specifics where, exactly, this country is, beyond saying that it's not Russia. This reference isn't randomly pulled from a hat: Rich wrote this poem in 1991, at the end of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. Presumably, then, that "here" refers to Rich's home country and that of her primary audience: the U.S.
While Americans were all too eager to acknowledge the Soviet Union's corruption and violent oppression of its people, they were, in Rich's estimation, less willing to look at their own country's "truth and dread." Broadly, Rich is illustrating that the kind of oppressive, tyrannical power her American readers might link with far-off, less progressive regimes also crops up right at home.
Within this country, the speaker describes an eerie, deserted "place" that is more symbolic than literal: an area in between rows of trees where an "old revolutionary road breaks off into the shadows" and on which stands "a meeting-house abandoned by the persecuted." Readers can picture an old house tucked away in the woods where revolutionaries would once conspire, away from the eyes of those in power. The disappearing road and the abandoned house represent a revolution that has itself faded into darkness and/or been actively stamped out; no one is using that road or meeting in that house, and those who once did have "disappeared into those shadows."
The speaker says that they've gone foraging along the "edge" of this place, suggesting that the speaker is familiar with revolution and perhaps connected to "the persecuted." The image of someone picking mushrooms in the woods has a fairy-tale quality to it, but the speaker quickly dispels any quaintness from the reader's mind: this poem takes place in the real world, in a country that has "ways of making people disappear." In other words, this is no fairy tale forest; it's a dangerous place where those in power can silence those without it.
The speaker refuses to say explicitly where this place is—lest those in power "buy it, sell it, make it disappear." The speaker wants to protect this place, which once served as a home to revolution and perhaps can again. The image of a "dark mesh of woods" that eventually presses up against a "strip of light" might suggest that hope peaks through the darkness of this mysterious place. At the same time, calling it a "ghost-ridden crossroads" and a "leafmold paradise" suggest that it's a place marked by death and decay, haunted by those who the ruling class has already made "disappear."
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Literary and Historical Context of “What Kind of Times Are These”
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Literary Context
"What Kind of Times Are These" was published in Adrienne Rich's 1995 collection Dark Fields of the Republic: Poems 1991-1995. The opening section of the book is also titled "What Kind of Times Are These" and examines issues facing contemporary American society.
Early in her career, Rich often wrote using traditional poetic structures like meter and rhyme. With its intimate language and lack of a clear poetic form, "What Kind of Times Are These" reflects Rich's later adoption of free verse, which she found less "distancing" and restrictive than meter.
"What Kind of Times Are These" is also in direct conversation with German poet Berthold Brecht's 1939 poem, "To Those Who Follow in Our Wake." Written at the start of World War II, Brecht's poem questions the morality of writing about nature in times of intense violence and oppression. Brecht wrote,
What times are these, in which
A conversation about trees is almost a crime
For in doing so we maintain our silence about so much wrongdoing!Rich, by contrast, argues that writing about nature is essential if poets want to engage their readers. This ideology suffuses Rich's own poetry. Along with friends such as Audre Lorde and June Jordan, Rich helped lead a generation of female and LGBTQ poets whose work challenged patriarchal, racist, and homophobic power structures in America and beyond.
Rich's commitments to feminism and left-wing politics grew over the course of the 1960s, in parallel with the growing women's liberation movement and other social movements of the era. Her collections from the late '60s (including Leaflets) and early '70s (including The Will to Change and Diving into the Wreck) are considered landmarks of feminist and LGBTQ literature. Rich won the National Book Award for Poetry in 1974 for her collection Diving into the Wreck, whose title poem explores women's erasure from cultural narratives. Rich accepted the award alongside Audre Lorde and Alice Walker, on behalf of all women "whose voices have gone and still go unheard in a patriarchal world."
Historical Context
As both a writer and activist, Rich was a leading voice in what is now known as second-wave feminism (or "women's liberation," the term she preferred). After leaving an unhappy marriage and coming out as a lesbian, Rich also became a leader in the modern LGBTQ rights movement. Rich's life (1929 to 2012) spanned a period of significant social upheaval in the United States, and Rich frequently addressed topics such as racism, the Vietnam War, and homosexuality through her poetry and prose. A Jewish lesbian, she also had reason to identify with "the persecuted" mentioned in this poem.
"What Kind of Times Are These" was published in 1995, four years after the end of the period of political tension between the United States and the USSR known as the Cold War. The speaker's reference to Russia in the poem's second stanza is informed by this historical reality: the KGB, the Soviet Union's secret intelligence agency, was infamous for its brutal quashing of political dissent. Rich's speaker asserts that violent oppression and censorship are not unique to Russia but also exist in the reader's home country (implied to be the U.S.).
Rich's poem might also be nodding to the modern reality of climate change, of which the 1990s public had become increasingly aware.
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More “What Kind of Times Are These” Resources
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External Resources
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Read About Rich's Life and Career — A biography of the poet from the Poetry Foundation.
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"To Those Who Follow in our Wake" — Read Bertolt Brecht's 1939 poem, to which Rich's poem responds.
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Listen to the Poem Out Loud — A recording of Rich reading "What Kind of Times Are These.
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An Overview of Rich's Legacy — An article about Rich's relationship to poetry and feminism as well her views on political poetry.
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LitCharts on Other Poems by Adrienne Rich
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