Adrienne Rich
National Book Award
1974
Bollingen Prize
2003
2010
Adrienne Cecile Rich (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."
Her 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. Rich famously declined the National Medal of Arts, protesting the United States House of Representatives and Speaker Gingrich's vote to end funding for the National Endowment for the Arts.
Read more about Adrienne Rich: Selected Awards and Honors
Famous quotes by adrienne rich:
“To work and suffer is to be at home.
All else is scenery ...”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)
“How people used to meet!
starved, intense, the old
Christmas gifts saved up till spring,
and the old plain words,”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)
“Piece by piece I seem
to re-enter the world: I first began
a small, fixed dot, still see
that old myself, a dark-blue thumbtack
pushed into the scene,
a hard little head protruding
from the pointillist’s buzz and bloom.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)
“I want to show her one poem
which is the poem of my life. But I hesitate,
and wake.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)
“Either you will
go through this door
or you will not go through.
...
The door itself
makes no promises.
It is only a door.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)