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Adrienne Rich

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Adrienne Rich

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Also known as Adrienne Cecile Rich, Adrienne Cécile Rich, Adrienne Riche, Adrienne C. Rich

American poet, essayist and feminist (1929–2012)

OverviewAI-generated

Adrienne Rich (1929–2012) was an American poet, essayist, writer, and women's rights activist. Born in Baltimore and residing there and in Santa Cruz, she was educated at Radcliffe College and Harvard University. Her professional career included teaching positions at Brandeis University, Cornell University, and Columbia University. She was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and her archives are held at the Schlesinger Library.

Rich received the Guggenheim Fellowship, MacArthur Fellows Program award, Bollingen Prize, and Lambda Literary Award. She was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry and the Neustadt International Prize for Literature. Her notable works include *The trees*, *Six women poets*, and *Prentice Hall Literature--Timeless Voices, Timeless Themes--The American Experience*. She was influenced by Simone de Beauvoir and Sylvia Plath, and was unmarried partner to Michelle Cliff. She died of rheumatoid arthritis.

Synthesized by Vinony from 30 facts across 3 sources: Wikidata, Open Library, Vinony collections. Generated from structured data (not the Wikipedia text) and checked against those facts — may still contain errors.

Person · Open Library

Born
16 May 1929
Died
27 March 2012
Works
187

Top works

  • Prentice Hall Literature--Timeless Voices, Timeless Themes--The American Experience
  • The United States in Literature [with three long stories] -- Seventh Edition
  • Prentice Hall Literature--The American Experience
  • The trees
  • Six women poets

via Open Library + Wikidata

Wikidata facts

Instance of
human
Gender
female
Citizenship
United States
Place of birth
Baltimore
Place of death
Santa Cruz
Occupation
peace activist
Languages spoken
English language
Field of work
essay
Official website
adriennerich.net
Image
Audre Lorde, Meridel Lesueur, Adrienne Rich 1980.jpg
Residence
Santa Cruz
Show 13 more facts
Commons category
Adrienne Rich
date of birth
1929-05-16
date of death
2012-03-27
influenced by
Sylvia Plath
cause of death
rheumatoid arthritis
medical condition
rheumatoid arthritis
unmarried partner
Michelle Cliff
manner of death
natural causes
married name
Adrienne Conrad
sexual orientation
lesbianism
Sources (15)

via Wikidata · CC0

~32 min read

Encyclopedic overview

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.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Adrienne Rich” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.

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