Persecution of the Other

The speaker of “What Kind of Times Are These” describes a totalitarian world in which anything that doesn’t fit a conventional mould is eradicated. Rich, a religious and sexual minority identity, would likely have been drawing from her own lived experience in social stigmatization. In the first stanza, the speaker describes “a meeting-house abandoned by the persecuted / who disappeared into those shadows” (Lines 3-4). The “meeting house” can be interpreted as a sanctuary for such people, such as a synagogue or LGBTQ home, which was then taken away as discrimination and oppression grew. Later, the speaker iterates that this place is “not somewhere else but here” (Line 6), stating that these realities are not distant cultures — they exist in our own backyards. Even though the removal of this meeting house happened in the past, the speaker argues that these threats are just as...