Adrienne Cecile Rich ( ; May 16, 1929 – March 27, 2012) was an American poet, essayist and
feminist
Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that society prioritizes the male po ...
. She was called "one of the most widely read and influential poets of the second half of the 20th century", and was credited with bringing "the
oppression of women
Sexism is prejudice or discrimination based on one's sex or gender. Sexism can affect anyone, but it primarily affects women and girls.There is a clear and broad consensus among academic scholars in multiple fields that sexism refers primari ...
and
lesbians to the forefront of poetic discourse". Rich criticized rigid forms of feminist identities, and valorized what she coined the "lesbian continuum", which is a female continuum of solidarity and creativity that impacts and fills women's lives.
Her first collection of poetry, ''A Change of World'', was selected by renowned poet
W. H. Auden for the
Yale Series of Younger Poets Award. Auden went on to write the introduction to the published volume. She famously declined the
National Medal of Arts
The National Medal of Arts is an award and title created by the United States Congress in 1984, for the purpose of honoring artists and Patronage, patrons of the arts. A prestigious American honor, it is the highest honor given to artists and ar ...
, protesting the vote by
House Speaker
The speaker of a deliberative assembly, especially a legislative body, is its presiding officer, or the chair. The title was first used in 1377 in England.
Usage
The title was first recorded in 1377 to describe the role of Thomas de Hungerfo ...
Newt Gingrich
Newton Leroy Gingrich (; né McPherson; born June 17, 1943) is an American politician and author who served as the 50th speaker of the United States House of Representatives from 1995 to 1999. A member of the Republican Party, he was the U ...
to end funding for the
National Endowment for the Arts.
Early life and education
Adrienne Cecile Rich was born in
Baltimore
Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic, and the 30th most populous city in the United States with a population of 585,708 in 2020. Baltimore was d ...
, Maryland, on May 16, 1929,
the elder of two sisters. Her father, pathologist
Arnold Rice Rich
Arnold Rice Rich (March 28, 1893 – April 17, 1968) was an American pathology, pathologist.
Career
Born March 28, 1893, in Birmingham, Alabama, Rich attended the University of Virginia, majoring in biology, and then the Johns Hopkins Medica ...
, was the chairman of
pathology at
The Johns Hopkins Medical School. Her mother, Helen Elizabeth (Jones) Rich, was a concert pianist and a composer. Her father was from a Jewish family, and her mother was a Southern Protestant; the girls were raised as Christians. Her paternal grandfather Samuel Rice was an
Ashkenazi
Ashkenazi Jews ( ; he, יְהוּדֵי אַשְׁכְּנַז, translit=Yehudei Ashkenaz, ; yi, אַשכּנזישע ייִדן, Ashkenazishe Yidn), also known as Ashkenazic Jews or ''Ashkenazim'',, Ashkenazi Hebrew pronunciation: , singu ...
immigrant from
Košice
Košice ( , ; german: Kaschau ; hu, Kassa ; pl, Коszyce) is the largest city in eastern Slovakia. It is situated on the river Hornád at the eastern reaches of the Slovak Ore Mountains, near the border with Hungary. With a population of app ...
in the Austro-Hungarian Empire (present day
Slovakia), while his mother was a
Sephardi Jew
Sephardic (or Sephardi) Jews (, ; lad, Djudíos Sefardíes), also ''Sepharadim'' , Modern Hebrew: ''Sfaradim'', Tiberian: Səp̄āraddîm, also , ''Ye'hude Sepharad'', lit. "The Jews of Spain", es, Judíos sefardíes (or ), pt, Judeus sefar ...
from
Vicksburg, Mississippi. Samuel Rice owned a successful shoe store in Birmingham. Adrienne Rich's early poetic influence stemmed from her father, who encouraged her to read but also to write her own poetry. Her interest in literature was sparked within her father's library, where she read the work of writers such as
Ibsen
Henrik Johan Ibsen (; ; 20 March 1828 – 23 May 1906) was a Norwegian playwright and theatre director. As one of the founders of modernism in theatre, Ibsen is often referred to as "the father of realism" and one of the most influential playw ...
,
[Shuman (2002) p1278] Arnold
Arnold may refer to:
People
* Arnold (given name), a masculine given name
* Arnold (surname), a German and English surname
Places Australia
* Arnold, Victoria, a small town in the Australian state of Victoria
Canada
* Arnold, Nova Scotia
Uni ...
,
Blake,
Keats,
Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and
Tennyson. Her father was ambitious for Adrienne and "planned to create a prodigy." Adrienne Rich and her younger sister were home schooled by their mother until Adrienne began public education in the fourth grade. The poems ''Sources'' and ''After Dark'' document her relationship with her father, describing how she worked hard to fulfill her parents' ambitions for her—moving into a world in which she was expected to excel.
In later years, Rich went to
Roland Park Country School, which she described as a "good old fashioned girls' school
hatgave us fine role models of single women who were intellectually impassioned."
[Martin, Wendy (1984) ''An American triptych: Anne Bradstreet, Emily Dickinson, Adrienne Rich'' The University of North Carolina Press p174 ] After graduating from high school, Rich earned her college diploma at
Radcliffe College
Radcliffe College was a women's liberal arts college in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and functioned as the female coordinate institution for the all-male Harvard College. Considered founded in 1879, it was one of the Seven Sisters colleges and he ...
, where she focused primarily on poetry and learning writing craft, encountering no women teachers at all.
In 1951, her last year at college, Rich's first collection of poetry, ''A Change of World'', was selected by the senior poet
W. H. Auden for the
Yale Series of Younger Poets Award; he went on to write the introduction to the published volume. Following her graduation, Rich received a
Guggenheim Fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...
to study at Oxford for a year. Following a visit to Florence, she chose not to return to Oxford, and spent her remaining time in Europe writing and exploring Italy.
Early career: 1953–75
In 1953, Rich married
Alfred Haskell Conrad
Alfred Haskell Conrad (January 2, 1924 – October 18, 1970) was a distinguished professor of economics at Harvard University and City College of New York. He belonged to the quantitative economic current called new economic history, or cliometr ...
, an economics professor at
Harvard University she met as an undergraduate. She said of the match: "I married in part because I knew no better way to disconnect from my first family. I wanted what I saw as a full woman's life, whatever was possible."
They settled in
Cambridge, Massachusetts, and had three sons. In 1955, she published her second volume, ''The Diamond Cutters'', a collection she said she wished had not been published, saying "a lot of the poems are incredibly derivative," and citing a "pressure to produce again... to make sure I was still a poet."
That year she also received the Ridgely Torrence Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America.
Her three children were born in 1955 (David), 1957 (Pablo) and 1959 (Jacob).
The 1960s began a period of change in Rich's life: she received the National Institute of Arts and Letters award (1960), her second Guggenheim Fellowship to work at the Netherlands Economic Institute (1961), and the
Bollingen Foundation grant for the translation of Dutch poetry (1962).
In 1963, Rich published her third collection, ''Snapshots of a Daughter-in-Law'', which was a much more personal work examining her female identity, reflecting the increasing tensions she experienced as a wife and mother in the 1950s, marking a substantial change in Rich's style and subject matter. In her 1982 essay "Split at the Root: An Essay on Jewish Identity", Rich states: "The experience of motherhood was eventually to radicalize me." The book met with harsh reviews. She comments, "I was seen as 'bitter' and 'personal'; and to be personal was to be disqualified, and that was very shaking because I'd really gone out on a limb ... I realised I'd gotten slapped over the wrist, and I didn't attempt that kind of thing again for a long time."
Moving her family to New York in 1966, Rich became involved with the
New Left
The New Left was a broad political movement mainly in the 1960s and 1970s consisting of activists in the Western world who campaigned for a broad range of social issues such as civil and political rights, environmentalism, feminism, gay rights, g ...
and became heavily involved in anti-war, civil rights, and feminist activism.
Her husband took a teaching position at
City College of New York
The City College of the City University of New York (also known as the City College of New York, or simply City College or CCNY) is a public university within the City University of New York (CUNY) system in New York City. Founded in 1847, Cit ...
.
In 1968, she signed the "
Writers and Editors War Tax Protest" pledge, vowing to refuse tax payments in protest against the Vietnam War. Her collections from this period include ''Necessities of Life'' (1966), ''Leaflets'' (1969), and ''The Will to Change'' (1971), which reflect increasingly radical political content and interest in poetic form.
From 1967 to 1969, Rich lectured at
Swarthmore College
Swarthmore College ( , ) is a Private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1864, with its first classes held in 1869, Swarthmore is one of the earliest coeduca ...
and taught at Columbia University School of the Arts as an adjunct professor in the Writing Division. Additionally, in 1968, she began teaching in the SEEK program in City College of New York, a position she continued until 1975.
During this time, Rich also received the Eunice Tietjens Memorial Prize from ''Poetry Magazine''.
Rich and Conrad hosted anti-war and Black Panther fundraising parties at their apartment. Rising tensions began to split the marriage, and Rich moved out in mid-1970, getting herself a small studio apartment nearby.
Shortly afterward, in October, Conrad drove into the woods and shot himself, widowing Rich.
In 1971, she was the recipient of the Shelley Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America and spent the next year and a half teaching at
Brandeis University as the Hurst Visiting Professor of Creative Writing.
''Diving into the Wreck'', a collection of exploratory and often angry poems, split the 1974
National Book Award for Poetry with
Allen Ginsberg, ''The Fall of America''.
Declining to accept it individually, Rich was joined by the two other feminist poets nominated, Alice Walker and Audre Lorde, to accept it on behalf of all women "whose voices have gone and still go unheard in a patriarchal world."[Shuman (2002) p1276] The following year, Rich took up the position of the Lucy Martin Donnelly Fellow at Bryn Mawr College.
Later life: 1976–2012
In 1976, Rich began her partnership with Jamaican-born novelist and editor Michelle Cliff
Michelle Carla Cliff (2 November 1946 – 12 June 2016) was a Jamaican-American author whose notable works included ''Abeng'' (1985), '' No Telephone to Heaven'' (1987), and ''Free Enterprise'' (2004).
In addition to novels, Cliff also wrote ...
, which lasted until her death. In her controversial work ''Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution'', published the same year, Rich acknowledged that, for her, lesbianism was a political as well as a personal issue, writing, "The suppressed lesbian I had been carrying in me since adolescence began to stretch her limbs." The pamphlet ''Twenty-One Love Poems'' (1977), which was incorporated into the following year's ''Dream of a Common Language'' (1978), marked the first direct treatment of lesbian desire and sexuality in her writing, themes which run throughout her work afterwards, especially in ''A Wild Patience Has Taken Me This Far'' (1981) and some of her late poems in ''The Fact of a Doorframe'' (2001). In her analytical work ''Adrienne Rich: the moment of change'', Langdell suggests these works represent a central rite of passage for the poet, as she (Rich) crossed a threshold into a newly constellated life and a "new relationship with the universe". During this period, Rich also wrote a number of key socio-political essays, including " Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence", one of the first to address the theme of lesbian existence.[''Guardian'' article, profile: "Poet and pioneer". 15 June 2002](_blank)
Retrieved August 10, 2010. In this essay, she asks "how and why women's choice of women as passionate comrades, life partners, co-workers, lovers, community, has been crushed, invalidated, forced into hiding". Some of the essays were republished in ''On Lies, Secrets and Silence
''On Lies, Secrets and Silence'' () is a 310-page, non-fiction book written by Adrienne Rich and published by W. W. Norton & Company in 1979. The book follows the author, Adrienne Rich telling and informing the readers about themes and aspects ...
: Selected Prose, 1966–1978'' (1979). In integrating such pieces into her work, Rich claimed her sexuality and took a role in leadership for sexual equality.
From 1976 to 1979, Rich taught at City College and Rutgers University as an English professor. In 1979, she received an honorary doctorate from Smith College and moved with Cliff to Montague, MA. Ultimately, they moved to Santa Cruz, where Rich continued her career as a professor, lecturer, poet, and essayist. Rich and Cliff took over editorship of the lesbian arts journal '' Sinister Wisdom'' (1981–1983). Rich taught and lectured at UC Santa Cruz, Scripps College
Scripps College is a Private university, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts Women's colleges in the United States, women's college in Claremont, California. It was founded as a member of the Claremont Colleges in 1 ...
, San Jose State University, and Stanford University
Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...
during the 1980s and 1990s.[Cucinella, Catherine (2002) ''Contemporary American women poets: an A-to-Z guide''. p295 Greenwood Press ] From 1981 to 1987, Rich served as an A.D. White Professor-At-Large for Cornell University. Rich published several volumes in the next few years: ''Your Native Land, Your Life'' (1986), ''Blood, Bread, and Poetry'' (1986), and ''Time's Power: Poems 1985–1988'' (1989). She also was awarded the Ruth Paul Lilly Poetry Prize (1986), the Elmer Holmes Bobst Award in Arts and Letters from NYU, and the National Poetry Association Award for Distinguished Service to the Art of Poetry (1989).
In 1977, Rich became an associate of the Women's Institute for Freedom of the Press (WIFP). WIFP is an American nonprofit publishing organization. The organization works to increase communication between women and connect the public with forms of women-based media.
Janice Raymond
Janice G. Raymond (born January 24, 1943) is an American lesbian radical feminist and professor emerita of women's studies and medical ethics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She is known for her work against violence, sexual explo ...
, in the foreword of her 1979 book '' The Transsexual Empire'', thanked Rich for "constant encouragement" and cited her in the book's chapter "Sappho by Surgery." "The Transsexual Empire" is considered by LGBT and feminist critics to be transphobic, and many have criticized Rich for her involvement in and support of its production. While Rich never explicitly disavowed her support for Raymond's work, Leslie Feinberg cites Rich as having been supportive during Feinberg's writing of ''Transgender Warriors
''Transgender Warriors: Making History from Joan of Arc to Dennis Rodman'', published in 1996, is an autobiographicalSchwartz, Patricia Roth. "Reviews: Transgender." Lambda Book Report, vol. 5, no. 2, Aug. 1996, p. 32. popular historyReview of '' ...
''.
By the early 1980s, Rich was using canes and wheelchairs due to her rheumatoid arthritis. Diagnosed with the condition at age 22, Rich kept her disability quiet for decades. The cold air in New England motivated Rich and Cliff to settle in California instead. A 1992 spinal operation required Rich to wear a metal halo screwed into her head.
In June 1984, Rich presented a speech at the International Conference of Women, Feminist Identity, and Society in Utrecht, Netherlands titled ''Notes Toward a Politics of Location.'' Her keynote speech is a major document on politics of location and the birth of the concept of female "locatedness." In discussing the location from which women speak, Rich attempts to reconnect female thought and speech with the female body; specifically, with an intent of reclaiming the body through verbalizing self-representation. Further focusing on location, Rich begins the speech by noting that while at that moment in time she speaks these words in Europe, she has searched for these words in the United States. By acknowledging her location in an essay on the progression of the women's movement, she expresses her concerns for all women, not limited to just women in her Providence. Through widening her audience to women across the whole wide world Rich not only influences a larger movement but more importantly, she invites all women to consider their existence. Through imagining geographical locations on a map as history and as a place where women are created, and further focusing on the geographical locations, Rich ask women to examine where they themselves were created. In an attempt to try to find a sense of belonging in the world, Rich asks the audience not to begin with a continent, country, or house, but to start with the geography closest to themselves –which is their body. Rich, therefore, challenges members of the audience and readers to form their own identity by refusing to be defined by the parameters of government, religion, and home. The essay hypothesizes where the women's movement should be at the end of the 20th century. In an encouraging call for the women's movement, Rich discusses how the movement for change is an evolution in itself. Through de-masculinizing itself and de-Westernizing itself, the movement becomes a critical mass of so many different, voices, languages and overall actions. She pleads that the movement must change in order to experience change. She further insists that women must change it. In her essay, Rich considers how one's background might influence their identity. She furthers this notion by noting her own exploration of the body, her body, as female, as white, as Jewish and as a body in a nation. Rich is careful to define the location in which her writing takes place. Throughout her essay, Rich relates back to the concept of location. She recounts her growth towards understanding how the women's movement grounded in the Western culture is limited to the concerns of white women to the verbal and written indications of Black United States citizens. Such professions have allowed her to experience the meaning of her whiteness as a point of location for which she needed to take responsibility. In 1986, she later published the essay in her prose collection ''Blood, Bread, and Poetry''.
Rich's work with the New Jewish Agenda led to the founding of ''Bridges: A Journal for Jewish Feminists and Our Friends'' in 1990, a journal of which Rich served as the editor. This work coincided explored the relationship between private and public histories, especially in the case of Jewish women's rights. Her next published piece, ''An Atlas of the Difficult World'' (1991), won both the ''Los Angeles Times'' Book Award in Poetry and the Lenore Marshall/''Nation'' Award as well as the Poet's Prize in 1993 and Commonwealth Award in Literature in 1991. During the 1990s Rich became an active member of numerous advisory boards such as the Boston Woman's Fund, National Writers Union and Sisterhood in Support of Sisters in South Africa. On the role of the poet, she wrote, "We may feel bitterly how little our poems can do in the face of seemingly out-of-control technological power and seemingly limitless corporate greed, yet it has always been true that poetry can break isolation, show us to ourselves when we are outlawed or made invisible, remind us of beauty where no beauty seems possible, remind us of kinship where all is represented as separation." In July 1994, Rich won the MacArthur Fellowship and Award, specifically the "Genius Grant" for her work as a poet and writer. Also in 1992, Rich became a grandmother to Julia Arden Conrad and Charles Reddington Conrad.
In 1997, Rich declined the National Medal of Arts
The National Medal of Arts is an award and title created by the United States Congress in 1984, for the purpose of honoring artists and Patronage, patrons of the arts. A prestigious American honor, it is the highest honor given to artists and ar ...
in protesting against the House of Representatives' vote to end the National Endowment for the Arts as well as policies of the Clinton Administration regarding the arts generally and literature in particular, stating that "I could not accept such an award from President Clinton or this White House because the very meaning of art, as I understand it, is incompatible with the cynical politics of this administration ... rtmeans nothing if it simply decorates the dinner table of the power which holds it hostage".[Shuman (2002) p1281] Her next few volumes were a mix of poetry and essays: ''Midnight Salvage: Poems 1995–1998'' (1999), ''The Art of the Possible: Essays and Conversations'' (2001), and ''Fox: Poems 1998–2000'' (2001).
In the early 2000s, Rich participated in anti-war activities, protesting against the threat of war in Iraq, both through readings of her poetry and other activities. In 2002, she was appointed a chancellor of the newly augmented board of the Academy of American Poets, along with Yusef Komunyakaa, Lucille Clifton, Jay Wright (who declined the honor, refusing to serve), Louise Glück, Heather McHugh, Rosanna Warren
Rosanna Phelps Warren (born July 27, 1953) is an American poet and scholar.
Biography
Warren is the daughter of novelist, literary critic and Poet Laureate Robert Penn Warren and writer Eleanor Clark. She graduated from Yale University, where ...
, Charles Wright, Robert Creeley, and Michael Palmer. She was the winner of the 2003 Yale Bollingen Prize for American Poetry and applauded by the panel of judges for her "honesty at once ferocious, humane, her deep learning, and her continuous poetic exploration and awareness of multiple selves." In October 2006, Equality Forum honored Rich's work, featuring her as an icon of LGBT history.
In 2009, despite initially having reservations about the movement, Rich endorsed the call for a cultural and academic boycott of Israel, denouncing "the Occupation's denial of Palestinian humanity, destruction of Palestinian lives and livelihoods, the "settlements," the state's physical and psychological walls against dialogue."
Rich died on March 27, 2012, at the age of 82 in her Santa Cruz, California home. Her son, Pablo Conrad, reported that her death resulted from long-term rheumatoid arthritis. Her last collection was published the year before her death. Rich was survived by her sons, two grandchildren and her partner Michelle Cliff
Michelle Carla Cliff (2 November 1946 – 12 June 2016) was a Jamaican-American author whose notable works included ''Abeng'' (1985), '' No Telephone to Heaven'' (1987), and ''Free Enterprise'' (2004).
In addition to novels, Cliff also wrote ...
.
Views on feminism
Rich wrote several pieces that explicitly tackle the rights of women in society. In ''Snapshots of a Daughter-in-Law'' she offers a critical analysis of the life of being both a mother and a daughter-in-law, and the impact of their gender in their lives. ''Diving Into the Wreck'' was written in the early 'seventies, and the collection marks the start of her darkening tone as she writes about feminism and other social issues. In particular, she writes openly about her outrage with the patriarchal nature of the greater society. In doing so, she becomes an example for other women to follow in the hopes that continued proactive work against sexism will eventually counteract it.
Her poems are also famous for their feminist elements. One such poem is "Power", which was written about Marie Curie, one of the most important female icons of the 20th century. In this poem, she discusses the element of power and feminism. More specifically, it tackles the problem that Curie was slowly succumbing to the radiation she acquired from her research, to which Rich refers in the poem as her source of power. This poem discusses the concept of power, particularly from a woman's point of view.
Besides poems and novels, Rich also wrote and published a number of nonfiction books that tackle feminist issues. Some of these books are: ''Of Woman Born, Motherhood as Experience and Institution, Blood, Bread and Poetry, etc.'' Especially the ''Bread and Poetry'' contains the famous feminist essay entitled "Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence", and ''Feminism and Community. ''
The works listed above, as well as her various interviews and documentaries, demonstrate that Rich has an in-depth perspective on feminism and society.
For one, Rich has something to say about the use of the term itself. According to her, she prefers to use the term "women's liberation" rather than feminism. For her, the latter term is more likely to induce resistance from women of the next generation. Also, she fears that the term would amount to nothing more than a label if it is used extensively. On the other hand, using the term women's liberation means that women can finally be free from factors that can be seen as oppressive to their rights.
Rich also writes in depth about "white feminism" and the need for intersectionality within the feminist movement. In ''Blood, Bread, and Poetry'', Rich writes that "feminism became a political and spiritual base from which I could move to examine rather than try to hide my own racism, recognize that I have anti-racist work to do continuously within myself". She goes on to write that "so long as eministsidentify only with white women, we are still connected to that system of objectification and callousness and cruelty called racism". Rich implores white feminists to consider the fact that " hey as victims of objectification, have objectified other women" through their role as the oppressor, and through the white privilege they inherently possess under a racist regime.
Rich's views on feminism can be found in her works. She says in ''Of Woman Born'' that "we need to understand the power and powerlessness embodied in motherhood in patriarchal culture." She also speaks regarding the need for women to unite in her book ''On Lies, Secrets and Silence.'' In this book, she wrote:
"Women have often felt insane when cleaving to the truth of our experience. Our future depends on the sanity of each of us, and we have a profound stake, beyond the personal, in the project of describing our reality as candidly and fully as we can to each other."
Given the feminist conditions in the 1950s–1970s era, it can be said that Rich's works on feminism are revolutionary. Her views on equality and the need for women to maximize their potential can be seen as progressive during her time. Her views strongly coincide with the feminist way of thinking during that time period. According to Rich, society as a whole is founded on patriarchy and limits the rights of women. For equality to be achieved between the sexes, the prevailing notions will have to be readjusted to fit the female perspective.
Views on racism
Rich has written at-length on the topic of white feminism and intersectionality within the feminist movement. Citing such prominent Black feminist activists and academics as Gloria T. Hull
Akasha Gloria Hull (born December 6, 1944) is an American poet, educator, writer, and critic whose work in African-American literature and as a Black feminist activist has helped shape Women's Studies. As one of the architects of Black Women's St ...
, Michele Russel, Lorraine Bethel Lorraine Bethel is an African-American lesbian feminist poet and author.
Professional experience
She is a graduate of Yale University. Bethel has taught and lectured on black women's literature and black female culture at various institutions. ...
, and Toni Morrison in her works, Rich dedicates several chapters of her book ''Blood, Bread, and Poetry'' to the subject of racism. Of her essay ''Of Woman Born,'' Rich writes that her essay "could have been stronger had it drawn on more of the literature by Black woman toward which Toni Morrison's ''Sula'' inevitably pointed me".
Touching on the privilege conferred to her as white feminist author, Rich writes in ''Blood, Bread, and Poetry'' that she "is probably going to be taken more seriousy in some quarters than the Black woman scholar whose combined experience and research give her far more penetrating knowledge and awareness than mine. I will be taken more seriously because I am white, .and because the invisibility of the woman of color who is the scholar/critic ''or'' the poet ''or'' the novelist is part of the structure of ''my'' privilege, even my credibility."
In 1981, Rich co-presented the keynote address for the National Women's Studies Association Convention in Storrs, Connecticut
Storrs is a village and census-designated place (CDP) in the New England town, town of Mansfield, Connecticut, Mansfield in eastern Tolland County, Connecticut, Tolland County, Connecticut, United States. The population was 15,344 at the 2010 Unite ...
along with Audre Lorde, delivering her speech entitled "'Disobedience is What NWSA is Potentially About.". The theme of the convention was "Women Respond to Racism", and Rich notes the homophobia and racism that still exists "in the enclave of Women's studies itself, where lesbians are still feared and women of color are still ignored". Rich goes on to say that "women of color who are found in the wrong place as defined at any given time by the white fathers will receive their retribution unseen: if they are beaten, raped, insulted, harassed, mutilated, murdered, these events will go unreported, unpunished, unconnected; and white women are not even supposed to know they occur, let alone identify with the sufferings endured." Rich goes on to ask audiences this: "how disobedient will Women's Studies be in the 1980s: how will this Association address the racism, misogyny, homophobia of the university and of the corporate and militisit society in which it is embedded; how will white feminist scholars and teachers and students practice disobedience to patriarchy?" Rich implores audiences to rid themselves of the idea that "by opposing racist violence, by doing anti-racist work, or by becoming feminists white women somehow cease to carry racism within them", noting that white women are never absolved of their white privilege and must continually commit to anti-racist work while they are still in the role of the oppressor.
Selected awards and honors
Each year links to its corresponding " ear) in poetry" article:
* 1950
Events January
* January 1 – The International Police Association (IPA) – the largest police organization in the world – is formed.
* January 5 – 1950 Sverdlovsk plane crash, Sverdlovsk plane crash: ''Aeroflot'' Lisunov Li-2 cr ...
: Yale Younger Poets Award
The Yale Series of Younger Poets is an annual event of Yale University Press aiming to publish the debut collection of a promising American poet. Established in 1918, the Younger Poets Prize is the longest-running annual literary award in the Uni ...
for ''A Change of World''.
* 1952
Events January–February
* January 26 – Black Saturday in Egypt: Rioters burn Cairo's central business district, targeting British and upper-class Egyptian businesses.
* February 6
** Princess Elizabeth, Duchess of Edinburgh, becomes m ...
: Guggenheim Fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...
* 1960
It is also known as the "Year of Africa" because of major events—particularly the independence of seventeen African nations—that focused global attention on the continent and intensified feelings of Pan-Africanism.
Events
January
* Ja ...
: National Institute of Arts and Letters Award
* 1970
Events
January
* January 1 – Unix time epoch reached at 00:00:00 UTC.
* January 5 – The 7.1 Tonghai earthquake shakes Tonghai County, Yunnan province, China, with a maximum Mercalli intensity scale, Mercalli intensity of X (''Extrem ...
: Shelley Memorial Award
* 1974
Major events in 1974 include the aftermath of the 1973 oil crisis and the resignation of United States President Richard Nixon following the Watergate scandal. In the Middle East, the aftermath of the 1973 Yom Kippur War determined politics; f ...
: National Book Award for Poetry (a split award) for ''Diving into the Wreck''["National Book Awards – 1974"]
National Book Foundation. Retrieved March 11, 2012. (With acceptance speech by Rich and essay by Evie Shockley
Evie Shockley is an American poet. Shockley received the 2012 Hurston/Wright Legacy Award in Poetry for her book ''the new black'' and the 2012 Holmes National Poetry Prize. She was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2018.
Early life and education
...
from the Awards 60-year anniversary blog.)
* 1979
Events
January
* January 1
** United Nations Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim heralds the start of the ''International Year of the Child''. Many musicians donate to the ''Music for UNICEF Concert'' fund, among them ABBA, who write the song ...
: Honorary Doctorate Smith College
* 1986
The year 1986 was designated as the International Year of Peace by the United Nations.
Events January
* January 1
** Aruba gains increased autonomy from the Netherlands by separating from the Netherlands Antilles.
**Spain and Portugal ente ...
: Inaugural Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize
* 1989
File:1989 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The Cypress Street Viaduct, Cypress structure collapses as a result of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, killing motorists below; The proposal document for the World Wide Web is submitted; The Exxo ...
: Honorary doctorate from Harvard University
* 1989: National Poetry Association Award for Distinguished Service to the Art of Poetry
* 1990
File:1990 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1990 FIFA World Cup is played in Italy; The Human Genome Project is launched; Voyager I takes the famous Pale Blue Dot image- speaking on the fragility of Humankind, humanity on Earth, Astroph ...
: Bill Whitehead Award for Lifetime Achievement (for gay or lesbian writing)
* 1991
File:1991 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Boris Yeltsin, elected as Russia's first president, waves the new flag of Russia after the 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt, orchestrated by Soviet hardliners; Mount Pinatubo erupts in the Phil ...
: Common Wealth Award of Distinguished Service
* 1991: Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
* 1992
File:1992 Events Collage V1.png, From left, clockwise: 1992 Los Angeles riots, Riots break out across Los Angeles, California after the Police brutality, police beating of Rodney King; El Al Flight 1862 crashes into a residential apartment buildi ...
: Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize
* 1992: Poets' Prize for ''Atlas of the Difficult World''
* 1992: Frost Medal
* 1992: Academy of American Poets Fellowship
* 1994
File:1994 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1994 Winter Olympics are held in Lillehammer, Norway; The Kaiser Permanente building after the 1994 Northridge earthquake; A model of the MS Estonia, which Sinking of the MS Estonia, sank in ...
: MacArthur Fellowship
* 1996
File:1996 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: A Centennial Olympic Park bombing, bomb explodes at Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta, set off by a radical Anti-abortion violence, anti-abortionist; The center fuel tank explodes on TWA Flight 8 ...
: Wallace Stevens Award
* 1997
File:1997 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The movie set of ''Titanic'', the highest-grossing movie in history at the time; ''Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'', is published; Comet Hale-Bopp passes by Earth and becomes one of t ...
: National Medal of Arts
The National Medal of Arts is an award and title created by the United States Congress in 1984, for the purpose of honoring artists and Patronage, patrons of the arts. A prestigious American honor, it is the highest honor given to artists and ar ...
(refused)
* 1999
File:1999 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The funeral procession of King Hussein of Jordan in Amman; the 1999 İzmit earthquake kills over 17,000 people in Turkey; the Columbine High School massacre, one of the first major school shootin ...
: Lifetime Achievement Award from the Lannan Foundation
* 2006
File:2006 Events Collage V1.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2006 Winter Olympics open in Turin; Twitter is founded and launched by Jack Dorsey; The Nintendo Wii is released; Montenegro 2006 Montenegrin independence referendum, votes to declare ...
: National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters
The National Book Awards are a set of annual U.S. literary awards. At the final National Book Awards Ceremony every November, the National Book Foundation presents the National Book Awards and two lifetime achievement awards to authors.
The Nat ...
["Distinguished Contribution to American Letters"]
National Book Foundation. Retrieved March 11, 2012. (With acceptance speech by Rich and introduction by Mark Doty.)
* 2006: David R Kessler Award for LGBTQ Studies, CLAGS: The Center for LGBTQ Studies
* 2010
File:2010 Events Collage New.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2010 Chile earthquake was one of the strongest recorded in history; The Eruption of Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland disrupts air travel in Europe; A scene from the opening ceremony of ...
: Lifetime Recognition Award from the Griffin Poetry Prize
* 2017
File:2017 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: The War Against ISIS at the Battle of Mosul (2016-2017); aftermath of the Manchester Arena bombing; The Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017 ("Great American Eclipse"); North Korea tests a ser ...
: Finalist, Pulitzer Prize for Poetry (posthumous)
* 2019: In June 2019, Rich was one of the inaugural fifty American "pioneers, trailblazers, and heroes" inducted on the National LGBTQ Wall of Honor within the Stonewall National Monument (SNM) in New York City's Stonewall Inn. The SNM is the first U.S. national monument dedicated to LGBTQ rights and history, and the wall's unveiling was timed to take place during the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots
The Stonewall riots (also known as the Stonewall uprising, Stonewall rebellion, or simply Stonewall) were a series of spontaneous protests by members of the gay community in response to a police raid that began in the early morning hours of Ju ...
.
Bibliography
Nonfiction
* 1976
Events January
* January 3 – The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights enters into force.
* January 5 – The Pol Pot regime proclaims a new constitution for Democratic Kampuchea.
* January 11 – The 1976 Phila ...
:
* 1979
Events
January
* January 1
** United Nations Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim heralds the start of the ''International Year of the Child''. Many musicians donate to the ''Music for UNICEF Concert'' fund, among them ABBA, who write the song ...
: ''On Lies, Secrets and Silence
''On Lies, Secrets and Silence'' () is a 310-page, non-fiction book written by Adrienne Rich and published by W. W. Norton & Company in 1979. The book follows the author, Adrienne Rich telling and informing the readers about themes and aspects ...
: Selected Prose'', 1966–1978
* 1986
The year 1986 was designated as the International Year of Peace by the United Nations.
Events January
* January 1
** Aruba gains increased autonomy from the Netherlands by separating from the Netherlands Antilles.
**Spain and Portugal ente ...
: ''Blood, Bread, and Poetry: Selected Prose'', 1979–1985 (Includes the noted essay: " Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence")
* 1993
File:1993 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The Oslo I Accord is signed in an attempt to resolve the Israeli–Palestinian conflict; The Russian White House is shelled during the 1993 Russian constitutional crisis; Czechoslovakia is peace ...
: ''What Is Found There: Notebooks on Poetry and Politics''
* 1995
File:1995 Events Collage V2.png, From left, clockwise: O.J. Simpson is O. J. Simpson murder case, acquitted of the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman from the 1994, year prior in "The Trial of the Century" in the United States; The ...
: ''If Not with Others, How?'' pp. 399–405 in
* 2001
The September 11 attacks against the United States by Al-Qaeda, which Casualties of the September 11 attacks, killed 2,977 people and instigated the global war on terror, were a defining event of 2001. The United States led a Participants in ...
:
* 2007
File:2007 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Steve Jobs unveils Apple's first iPhone; TAM Airlines Flight 3054 overruns a runway and crashes into a gas station, killing almost 200 people; Former Pakistani Prime Minister of Pakistan, Pr ...
: ''Poetry and Commitment: An Essay''
* 2009
File:2009 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: The vertical stabilizer of Air France Flight 447 is pulled out from the Atlantic Ocean; Barack Obama becomes the first African American to become President of the United States; 2009 Iran ...
: ''A Human Eye: Essays on Art in Society'', 1997–2008
* 2018: ''Essential Essays: Culture, Politics, and the Art of Poetry'', W.W. Norton, 2018
Poetry
Collections
* 1951
Events
January
* January 4 – Korean War: Third Battle of Seoul – Chinese and North Korean forces capture Seoul for the second time (having lost the Second Battle of Seoul in September 1950).
* January 9 – The Government of the United ...
:
* 1955
Events January
* January 3 – José Ramón Guizado becomes president of Panama.
* January 17 – , the first nuclear-powered submarine, puts to sea for the first time, from Groton, Connecticut.
* January 18– 20 – Battle of Yijian ...
:
* 1963
Events January
* January 1 – Bogle–Chandler case: Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation scientist Dr. Gilbert Bogle and Mrs. Margaret Chandler are found dead (presumed poisoned), in bushland near the Lane Cov ...
:
* 1966
Events January
* January 1 – In a coup, Colonel Jean-Bédel Bokassa takes over as military ruler of the Central African Republic, ousting President David Dacko.
* January 3 – 1966 Upper Voltan coup d'état: President Maurice Yaméogo i ...
:
* 1967
Events
January
* January 1 – Canada begins a year-long celebration of the 100th anniversary of Confederation, featuring the Expo 67 World's Fair.
* January 5
** Spain and Romania sign an agreement in Paris, establishing full consular and ...
:
* 1969
This year is notable for Apollo 11's first landing on the moon.
Events January
* January 4 – The Government of Spain hands over Ifni to Morocco.
* January 5
**Ariana Afghan Airlines Flight 701 crashes into a house on its approach to ...
:
* 1971 *
The year 1971 had three partial solar eclipses ( February 25, July 22 and August 20) and two total lunar eclipses (February 10, and August 6).
The world population increased by 2.1% this year, the highest increase in history.
Events
Ja ...
:
* 1973
Events January
* January 1 - The United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland and Denmark enter the European Economic Community, which later becomes the European Union.
* January 15 – Vietnam War: Citing progress in peace negotiations, U.S. ...
:
* 1975
It was also declared the ''International Women's Year'' by the United Nations and the European Architectural Heritage Year by the Council of Europe.
Events
January
* January 1 - Watergate scandal (United States): John N. Mitchell, H. R. ...
:
* 1976
Events January
* January 3 – The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights enters into force.
* January 5 – The Pol Pot regime proclaims a new constitution for Democratic Kampuchea.
* January 11 – The 1976 Phila ...
:
* 1978
Events January
* January 1 – Air India Flight 855, a Boeing 747 passenger jet, crashes off the coast of Bombay, killing 213.
* January 5 – Bülent Ecevit, of Republican People's Party, CHP, forms the new government of Turkey (42nd go ...
:
* 1982
Events January
* January 1 – In Malaysia and Singapore, clocks are adjusted to the same time zone, UTC+8 (GMT+8.00).
* January 13 – Air Florida Flight 90 crashes shortly after takeoff into the 14th Street bridges, 14th Street Bridge in ...
: (reprint 1993)
* 1983
The year 1983 saw both the official beginning of the Internet and the first mobile cellular telephone call.
Events January
* January 1 – The migration of the ARPANET to Internet protocol suite, TCP/IP is officially completed (this is consid ...
:
* 1984
Events
January
* January 1 – The Bornean Sultanate of Brunei gains full independence from the United Kingdom, having become a British protectorate in 1888.
* January 7 – Brunei becomes the sixth member of the Association of Southeast A ...
:
* 1986
The year 1986 was designated as the International Year of Peace by the United Nations.
Events January
* January 1
** Aruba gains increased autonomy from the Netherlands by separating from the Netherlands Antilles.
**Spain and Portugal ente ...
:
* 1989
File:1989 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The Cypress Street Viaduct, Cypress structure collapses as a result of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, killing motorists below; The proposal document for the World Wide Web is submitted; The Exxo ...
:
* 1991
File:1991 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Boris Yeltsin, elected as Russia's first president, waves the new flag of Russia after the 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt, orchestrated by Soviet hardliners; Mount Pinatubo erupts in the Phil ...
:
* 1993
File:1993 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The Oslo I Accord is signed in an attempt to resolve the Israeli–Palestinian conflict; The Russian White House is shelled during the 1993 Russian constitutional crisis; Czechoslovakia is peace ...
:
* 1995
File:1995 Events Collage V2.png, From left, clockwise: O.J. Simpson is O. J. Simpson murder case, acquitted of the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman from the 1994, year prior in "The Trial of the Century" in the United States; The ...
:
* 1996
File:1996 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: A Centennial Olympic Park bombing, bomb explodes at Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta, set off by a radical Anti-abortion violence, anti-abortionist; The center fuel tank explodes on TWA Flight 8 ...
:
* 1999
File:1999 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The funeral procession of King Hussein of Jordan in Amman; the 1999 İzmit earthquake kills over 17,000 people in Turkey; the Columbine High School massacre, one of the first major school shootin ...
:
* 2001
The September 11 attacks against the United States by Al-Qaeda, which Casualties of the September 11 attacks, killed 2,977 people and instigated the global war on terror, were a defining event of 2001. The United States led a Participants in ...
: (reprint 2003)
* 2004
2004 was designated as an International Year of Rice by the United Nations, and the International Year to Commemorate the Struggle Against Slavery and its Abolition (by UNESCO).
Events January
* January 3 – Flash Airlines Flight 6 ...
:
* 2007
File:2007 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Steve Jobs unveils Apple's first iPhone; TAM Airlines Flight 3054 overruns a runway and crashes into a gas station, killing almost 200 people; Former Pakistani Prime Minister of Pakistan, Pr ...
:
* 2010
File:2010 Events Collage New.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2010 Chile earthquake was one of the strongest recorded in history; The Eruption of Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland disrupts air travel in Europe; A scene from the opening ceremony of ...
:
* 2016
File:2016 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Bombed-out buildings in Ankara following the 2016 Turkish coup d'état attempt; the impeachment trial of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff; Damaged houses during the 2016 Nagorno-Karabakh ...
:
See also
* American philosophy
American philosophy is the activity, corpus, and tradition of philosophers affiliated with the United States. The ''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' notes that while it lacks a "core of defining features, American Philosophy can nevert ...
* List of American philosophers
* Lesbian Poetry
A lesbian is a Homosexuality, homosexual woman.Zimmerman, p. 453. The word is also used for women in relation to their sexual identity or sexual behavior, regardless of sexual orientation, or as an adjective to characterize or associate n ...
References
Further reading
* Colby Langdell, Cheri (2004) ''Adrienne Rich: The Moment of Change'' Praeger
* Gioia, Dana (January 1999) "Midnight Salvage: Poems 1995–1998" (first published in ''San Francisco Magazine'')
* Henneberg, Sylvia (2010) ''The Creative Crone: Aging and the Poetry of May Sarton and Adrienne Rich'' University of Missouri
* Holladay, Hilary (2020) ''The Power of Adrienne Rich: A Biography'' Nan A. Talese/Doubleday
* Keyes, Claire (2008) ''The Aesthetics of Power: The Poetry of Adrienne Rich'' University of Georgia Press
* Shuman, R. Baird (2002) ''Great American Writers: Twentieth Century''. Marshall Cavendish
* Yorke, Liz (1998) ''Adrienne Rich: Passion, Politics and the Body'' Sage Publications
External links
Official Adrienne Rich Website
Managed by The Adrienne Rich Literary Trust.
Adrienne Rich: Profile, Poems, Essays at Poets.org
Profile and poems written and audio at Poetry Foundation
Retrieved 2010-01-08
Profile and poems written and audio at Poetry Archive
Retrieved 2010-01-08
Retrieved 2010-01-08
. Retrieved 2010-01-08
Griffin Poetry Prize Profile and videos
. Retrieved 2010-01-08
Reading and conversation at Lannan Foundation September 29 1999 (audio, 48 mins)
Retrieved 2010-01-08
Retrieved 2010-01-08
poetry article by Rich at '' The Guardian'', November 18, 2006. Retrieved 2010-01-08
"Adrienne Rich Papers"
Archive at Schlesinger Library from the Radcliffe Institute. Retrieved 2010-01-08
*
Adrienne Rich
at Library of Congress Authorities — with 61 catalog records
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rich, Adrienne
1929 births
2012 deaths
20th-century American poets
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