Adrienne Rich
Adrienne Rich (1929 - 2012) was an American poet and essayist. Rich won numerous awards, including the National Book Award (1974), Robert Frost Medal (1992), MacArthur Fellowship (1994), and the Poets' Prize (1992).
- Adrienne Rich: Poetry FoundationDuring her life, poet and essayist Adrienne Rich was one of America’s foremost public intellectuals.
- Adrienne Rich: BrtiannicaAdrienne Rich, in full Adrienne Cecile Rich, (born May 16, 1929, Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.—died March 27, 2012, Santa Cruz, California), American poet, scholar, teacher, and critic whose many volumes of poetry trace a stylistic transformation from formal, well-crafted but imitative poetry to a more personal and powerful style.
Research & Reference
- Adrienne Rich: Credo ReferenceA Credo Reference page on Adrienne Rich. This page includes links to reference works, journal articles, and a mind map.
- Adrienne Rich: Harvard Radcliffe InstituteIn 1951, Rich's first collection of poetry, A Change of World, was selected by renowned poet W. H. Auden to win the Yale Series of Younger Poets competition.
Streaming Media
- The Heart of ThingsAdrienne Rich, Victor Hernandez Cruz, and Michael S. Harper have changed the way poetry is heard, read, and absorbed. This program showcases these three poets who exult in language’s ability to illuminate culture and history. Filmed at the Biennial Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival.
Author's Works
Collected Poems: 1950-2012
The collected works of Adrienne Rich, whose poetry is "distinguished by an unswerving progressive vision and a dazzling, empathic ferocity" (New York Times). A Finalist for the 2017 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry. Adrienne Rich was the singular voice of her generation and one of our most important American poets. She brought discussions of gender, race, and class to the forefront of poetical discourse, pushing formal boundaries and consistently examining both self and society. This collected volume traces the evolution of her poetry, from her earliest work, which was formally exact and decorous, to her later work, which became increasingly radical in both its free-verse form and feminist and political content. The entire body of her poetry is on display in this vast volume, including the National Book Award-winning Diving Into the Wreck and her prize-winning Atlas of the Difficult World. The Collected Poems of Adrienne Rich gathers and memorializes all of her boldly political, formally ambitious, thoughtful, and lucid work, the whole of which makes her one of the most prolific and influential poets of our time.
Tonight No Poetry Will Serve
Relationships--partings/reconciliations, solidarities/ruptures, trust/betrayal, exposure/withdrawal--are the deep fabric of this forceful work. In the intimate address of "Axel Avákar," the black humor of "Quarto," and the underground journey of "Powers of Recuperation," compressed lyrics flash among larger scenarios where images, dialogues, blues, and song spiral into political visions. Adrienne Rich has said, "I believe almost everything I know, have come to understand, is somewhere in this book." from "Ballade of the Poverties" There's the poverty of wages wired for the funeral you Can't get to the poverty of bodies lying unburied There's the poverty of labor offered silently on the curb The poverty of yard sale scrapings spread And rejected the poverty of eviction, wedding bed out on street Prince let me tell you who will never learn through words There are poverties and there are poverties.