Adrienne Rich

(1929- )  A poet and essayist, best known for her examination of the experiences of women in society. She was born in Baltimore, Maryland.

"If I could have one wish for my own sons, it is that they should have the courage of women. I mean by this something very concrete and precise: the courage I have seen in women who, in their private and public lives, both in the interior world of their dreaming, thinking and creating, and the outer world of patriarchy, are taking greater and greater risks, both psychic and physical, in the evolution of a new vision. . . . I would like my sons not to shrink from this kind of pain, not to settle for the old male defenses, including that of fatalistic self-hatred. And I would wish them to do this not for me, or for other women, but for themselves, and for the sake of life on the planet earth."
                                                                                            - from "Of Woman Born" by Adrienne Rich

In 1997, Rich was awarded the prestigious National Medal for the Arts by President Clinton, an award she turned down to protest "nakedly repressive" arts policies, and "the increasingly brutal impact of racial and economic injustice in our country."

This site includes some text (Poems by Adrienne Rich):
http://www.math.okstate.edu/~raven/rich.html

A short Bio from Brittanica:
http://women.eb.com/women/articles/Rich_Adrienne_Cecile.html


Buy Online at Amazon.com:

• Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution

• The Fact of a Doorframe: Poems Selected and New

• Diving into the Wreck: Poems 1971-1972

• The Dream of a Common Language: Poems 1974-1977

• Blood, Bread, and Poetry: Selected Prose 1979-1985

• A Wild Patience Has Taken Me This Far: Poems 1978-1981

• Time's Power: Poems 1985-1988

• An Atlas of a Difficult World: Poems 1988-1991

• Dark Fields of the Republic: Poems 1991-1995

• Midnight Salvage: Poems 1995-1998

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