Necessities of Life

The poem’s distinct and personal narrative voice drives the poem’s thematic concerns. The first person point of view allows Rich to express her experiences and emotions. The consistent use of the word “I” allows Rich to blur the speaker’s voice with her own to merge the personal and the artistic, a radical rejection of artistic norms. This results in a poem that, by intentional design, reads as autobiographical.

Rich makes extensive use of comparison. The poem’s use of similes and metaphors can be arranged into three separate groups: Those describing the speaker’s self, those describing her life, and those describing her community.

Initially unable to define herself, the speaker metaphorically is a “thumbtack” (Line 4), a new writer drowning in the work of Wittgenstein, Wollstonecraft, or a mimic acting a part like Jouvet (Lines 16-18). When the speaker starts to break free of the early constraints, Rich shifts to similes: The speaker is akin to “bulb” (Line 22) without actually being one.

In the middle of the poem, similes express specific emotions. Her life is filled with poverty, “[l]ike being on a private dole” (Line 25), and with repeated and hard labor, “like kneading bricks in Egypt” (Line 26). These difficult experiences are also emotionally rewarding and physically liberating.

At the end of the poem, figurative language becomes completely domestic and personal; images emphasize community and connection. The speaker's movements are no longer infertile like a "dry bulb," but instead layered and vegetative like a “cabbage-head” (Line 38). The chimney smoke she sees reminds her of her own “breath” (Line 40) and the houses to “old women knitting” (Line 42).