"When does a life bend toward freedom? grasp its direction? " asks Adrienne Rich in Dark Fields of the Republic, her major new work. Her explorations go to the heart of democracy and love, and the historical and present endangerment of both. The poems of Dark Fields of the Republic are a theater of voices: of men and women, the dead and the living, over time and across continents. Rich writes out of dreams and nightmares, conversations actual and imaginary, actions taken for better or for worse, out of histories and songs, humdrum and terrible events, the most intimate loves and love for the world.