“The Burning of Paper Instead of Children” is a good example of Rich’s developing experimental style. Between 1968 and 1970, Rich confronted in her poetry the inability of the language that she had inherited to express the pain both of her own life and of society as it underwent turbulent social change. The results of this experimentation can be seen in Leaflets but are also evident in this collection, The Will to Change. Whereas in her early work, exemplified by “Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers,” Rich encapsulated a certain experience, in this experimental vein the poem itself is the experience. As Rich allows the unconscious to speak through her poetry, the poem contributes to the creation of new experiences for both poet and reader. The poem consists of five interrelated sections, which vary in form from fragmented free verse to prose poetry.

The starting point for the poem is autobiographical—a neighbor calls to complain about the poet’s son burning a textbook—and the poet does not hesitate to use the first-person voice, thus illustrating the role of personal memory as the key to political connections as well as Rich’s assumption of personal presence in her work. The poet juxtaposes this incident with a picture of Joan of Arc being burned at the stake, a memory from her privileged childhood in which she had access to books and education though they failed to teach about the reality of suffering. This memory also serves as the occasion for Rich to explore the difficult relationship of “love and fear” she experienced with her father, a relationship she now begins to perceive as oppressive. The relationship with her father is another recurrent theme in Rich’s work, and some critics have gone so far as to suggest that it is the dominant theme.

In the second section, the poet records her frustration that language is necessary, yet inadequate, to communicate. The third section lists different forms of suffering and concludes with the observation that, in order to overcome suffering, the language must be repaired. Rich thereby links the themes of the first two sections and illustrates the connection, for her, between language and politics. Once Rich broke away from the formalism that conveniently shielded her from the power of raw language, she became increasingly preoccupied with this subject.

The fourth section again explores frustration in a personal relationship and the uselessness of written texts to describe and understand experience (suggesting that burning books is a reasonable response). The final section further investigates the problems described above in a stream-of-consciousness list that strives to capture the poet’s own feeling of burning with impotence to solve the different yet related problems that range from poverty in the United States to the burning of children by napalm in Vietnam.

The experimental form of the poem forces the reader to confront a complexity that resists easy summary. This is in marked contrast to Rich’s earlier work, where the theme of the poem was more easily extracted. Rich abandons conventional form and attempts to put into language thoughts that were not previously considered poetic, to push at the limits of what is considered “poetry.” Along with the exploration of form, Rich allows a more personal voice to be heard in the poem, blending autobiographical scenes and reminiscences with only minimal clues for the reader as to their context and significance. Rich does not pretend to maintain traditional poetic language and integrates black dialect into the poem as a means of illustrating the inadequacy of Standard English to capture some forms of experience. This incorporation of different voices also symbolizes the connections Rich perceives between different struggles for change and justice.