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I've definitely never found or heard of any video or photos of this event, unfortunately. The most coverage I could find was a 1974 New York Times article on the awards, and I'd pay the $3.95 to read it if I thought it might have included a picture of her speech, but I suspect it doesn't. I believe she and Lorde took the stage together when they accepted it (I don't think Walker came).
The speech Rich delivered, written together with the other women, has been published in snippets and quotes in a few different places, but the entirety, as far as I know, can only be found in the books "Inviting Transformation: Presentational Speaking for a Changing World" by Foss (page 148) and "Women's Voices in Our Time: Statements by American Leaders" by Victoria Defrancisco (in the epilogue).
Too bad; one good thing about this age is that our living history is captured in all sorts of media. It would have really been something to see her deliver that speech live! Anyway, in case you don't have it, the gist of it was (patched together from several sources):
"We, Audre Lorde, Adrienne Rich, and Alice Walker, together accept this award in the name of all women whose voices have gone and still go unheard in a patriarchal world, and in the name of those who, like us, have been tolerated as token women in this culture, often at great cost and in great pain...We believe that we can enrich ourselves more in supporting and giving to each other than by competing against each other; and that poetry - if it *is* poetry - exists in a realm beyond ranking and comparison. We symbolically join together in refusing the terms of patriarchal competition and declaring that we will share this prize among us, to be used as best it can for women. We appreciated the good faith of the judges for this award, but none of us could accept this money for herself, nor could she let go unquestioned the terms on which poets are given or denied honor and livelihood in the world, especially when they are women...We dedicate this occasion to the struggle for self-determination of all women, of every color, identification or deprived class: the poet, the housewife, the lesbian, the mathematician, the mother, the dishwasher, the pregnant teenager, the teacher, the grandmother, the prostitute, the philosopher, the waitress, the women who will understand what we are doing here and those who will not understand yet...the silent women whose voices have been denied us, the articulate women who have given us strength to do our work."
(They ended up donating the $1000 prize to to the Sisterhood of Black Single Mothers in NYC.)
Source(s):
fan of radical women of color
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- Thank you. Yeah I have read quite a bit on it, but it would have been a very different thing to actually see and hear such a dramatic event. Thanks so much for the info!