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:
“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)
“The word ‘revolution’ itself has become not only a dead relic of Leftism, but a key to the deadendedness of male politics: the ‘revolution’ of a wheel which returns in the end to the same place; the ‘revolving door’ of a politics which has ‘liberated’ women only to use them, and only within the limits of male tolerance.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)
“We assume that politicians are without honor. We read their statements trying to crack the code. The scandals of their politics: not so much that men in high places lie, only that they do so with such indifference, so endlessly, still expecting to be believed. We are accustomed to the contempt inherent in the political lie.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)
“My children cause me the most exquisite suffering of which I have any experience. It is the suffering of ambivalence: the murderous alternation between bitter resentment and raw-edged nerves, and blissful gratification and tenderness. Sometimes I seem to myself, in my feelings toward these tiny guiltless beings, a monster of selfishness and intolerance.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)
“Now, again, poetry
violent, arcane, common,
hewn of the commonest living substance
into archway, portal, frame
I grasp for you, your bloodstained splinters, your
ancient and stubborn poise
Mas the earth trembles—
burning out from the grain”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)