Adrienne Rich (1929–2012)
Author of The Dream of a Common Language: Poems 1974-1977
About the Author
Adrienne Cecile Rich was born in Baltimore, Maryland on May 16, 1929. In 1951 she graduated from Radcliffe College and was selected for the Yale Series of Younger Poets prize by W.H. Auden. She began teaching for City College of New York in 1968, and was also a lecturer and adjunct professor at show more Swarthmore College and Columbia University School of the Arts. She taught in CUNY's basic writing program during the early 1970s. In the 1970s, she started to be active in the women's liberation movement. Her work has been characterized as confrontational, treating women's role in society, racism, and the Vietnam War. In addition to many collections of poetry, she has also written several books of nonfiction prose, such as Arts of the Possible: Essays and Conversations, What is Found There: Notebooks on Poetry and Politics, and Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution. Her last poetry collection was entitled Tonight No Poetry Will Serve: Poems 2007-2010. She has won numerous literary awards, including the 1986 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, the 1992 Poets' Prize, the 1997 Wallace Stevens Award of the Academy of American Poets, the 2004 National Book Critics Circle Award in Poetry, and the 2006 National Book Foundation Medal of Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. She has also received the Bollingen Prize, the Lannan Lifetime Achievement Award, the Academy of American Poets Fellowship, the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize, and a MacArthur Fellowship. In 1974, she refused to receive as an individual the National Book Award for Poetry, instead accepting it on behalf of all silenced women. She also refused the National Medal of Arts in 1997, 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." In 2012, she won the Lifetime Recognition Award from the Griffin Poetry Prize. She died from long-term rheumatoid arthritis on March 27, 2012. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Image credit: photo credit: Lilian Kemp
Works by Adrienne Rich
Sinister Wisdom 22/23: A Gathering of Spirit: North American Indian Women's Issue (1983) — Editor — 19 copies
The Meaning of Our Love for Women Is What We Have Constantly to Expand: New York Lesbian Pride Rally, June 26,1977 (1977) 6 copies
Sinister Wisdom — Editor — 1 copy
I am an American woman 1 copy
âTranscendental Etudeâ 1 copy
âPowerâ 1 copy
Permeable Membrane 1 copy
Rich, Adrienne Archive 1 copy
White Knight 1 copy
Two Songs 1 copy
The Knight: After Rilke 1 copy
Song 1 copy
The Trees 1 copy
Amends 1 copy
Pieces 1 copy
Snow Queen 1 copy
Split at the Root 1 copy
Upcountry 1 copy
Associated Works
Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama (1995) — Contributor, some editions — 915 copies
Chloe Plus Olivia: An Anthology of Lesbian Literature from the 17th Century to the Present (1994) — Contributor — 446 copies
Work of a Common Woman: The Collected Poetry of Judy Grahn 1964-1977 (1978) — Introduction, some editions — 164 copies
The Glorious American Essay: One Hundred Essays from Colonial Times to the Present (2020) — Contributor — 81 copies
Wrestling with Zion: Progressive Jewish-American Responses to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict (2003) — Contributor — 71 copies
About Women: An Anthology of Contemporary Fiction, Poetry, and Essays (1973) — Contributor — 26 copies
Democracy in Print: The best of the Progressive Magazine, 1909-2009 (2009) — Contributor — 14 copies
Firsts: 100 Years of Yale Younger Poets (Yale Series of Younger Poets) (2019) — Contributor — 12 copies
Sunlight on the River: Poems About Paintings, Paintings About Poems (2015) — Contributor — 10 copies
What Is Gender Nihilism? A Reader — Contributor — 9 copies
Poems by Ghalib (The Hudson Review) — Translator — 2 copies
In'hui, No.9 — Contributor — 1 copy
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Canonical name
- Rich, Adrienne
- Legal name
- Rich, Adrienne Cecile
- Birthdate
- 1929-05-16
- Date of death
- 2012-03-27
- Gender
- female
- Nationality
- USA
- Birthplace
- Baltimore, Maryland, USA
- Place of death
- Santa Cruz, California, USA
- Cause of death
- long-term rheumatoid arthritis
- Places of residence
- Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
- Education
- Radcliffe College (BA| 1951)
- Occupations
- poet
critic
teacher - Relationships
- Cliff, Michelle (partner)
Conrad, Alfred Haskell (husband) - Organizations
- City College of New York
Swarthmore College
Columbia University
Stanford University - Awards and honors
- National Book Award, Medal of Distinguished Contribution to American Letters (2006)
Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize (1986)
Bollingen Prize (2003)
Shelley Memorial Award (1970/1971)
Frost Medal (1991/1992)
Amy Lowell Travelling Fellowship in Poetry (1961-1962) (show all 20)
Wallace Stevens Award (1996)
Fellowship of the Academy of American Poets (1992)
Lannan Literary Award (Lifetime Achievement â 1999)
Publishing Triangle (Bill Whitehead Award for Lifetime Achievement â 1990)
American Academy of Arts and Letters Academy Award (Music â 1960)
MacArthur Fellowship (1994)
National Institute of Arts and Letters Award (1960)
Eunice Tietjens Memorial Prize (1975)
Yale Younger Poets Award (1950)
National Book Award (1974)
National Poetry Association Award for Distinguished Service to the Art of Poetry (1989)
Common Wealth Award of Distinguished Service (1991)
Fellow, American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1991)
Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize (1992)
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Reviews
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Awards
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Statistics
- Works
- 90
- Also by
- 77
- Members
- 8,785
- Popularity
- #2,723
- Rating
- 4.0
- Reviews
- 77
- ISBNs
- 175
- Languages
- 8
- Favorited
- 32
"I am a woman in the prime of life, with certain powers
and those powers are severely limited
by authorities whose faces I rarely see.
I am a woman in the prime of life
driving her dead poet in a black Rolls Royce
through a landscape of twilight and thorns."… (more)