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:
“A thinking woman sleeps with monsters.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)
“How we dwelt in two worlds
the daughters and the mothers
in the kingdom of the sons.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)
“children are dying my death
and eating crumbs of my life.”
—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)
“The worker can unionize, go out on strike; mothers are divided from each other in homes, tied to their children by compassionate bonds; our wildcat strikes have most often taken the form of physical or mental breakdown.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)