Adrienne Rich
Adrienne Rich | |
|---|---|
Rich in 1983 | |
| Born | Adrienne Cecile Rich May 16, 1929 Baltimore, Maryland, U.S. |
| Died | March 27, 2012 (aged 82) Santa Cruz, California, U.S. |
| Occupation |
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| Education | Radcliffe College (BA) |
| Genre | Poetry, non-fiction |
| Notable works | Diving Into the Wreck |
| Notable awards | National Book Award 1974 Bollingen Prize 2003 Griffin Poetry Prize 2010 |
| Spouse | |
| Partner | Michelle Cliff (1976–2012) |
| Children | 3 |
Adrienne Cecile Rich (/ˈædriɛn/; May 16, 1929 – March 27, 2012) was an American poet, essayist and feminist. 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 and lesbians to the forefront of poetic discourse". Rich criticized the rigid identities that are sometimes created by feminism, called for feminism that is flexible and open to being transformed, and drew attention to the existing current of solidarity and creativity among women, which she named the "lesbian continuum."
Her first collection of poetry, A Change of World, was selected by W. H. Auden for the Yale Series of Younger Poets Award. Auden went on to write the introduction to the book. Rich famously declined the National Medal of Arts to protest House Speaker Newt Gingrich's vote to end funding for the National Endowment for the Arts.