Adrienne Rich(1929-)
  “It’s exhilarating to be alive in a time of awakening consciousness; 
     it can also be confusing, disorienting, and painful.”
Page by Chelsea Hoffman, Fall 1999
Biography
1929 Adrienne Cecile Rich born May 16th to Helen Jones Rich (a composer and pianist) and Arnold Rice Rich (an assimilated Jew).  She and her younger sister Cynthia are both educated at home, mainly by their mother, until the 4th grade.  Rich’s parents believed in home schooling to teach their daughters in a more enlightened way.  Rich lived in gentile neighborhood, and was never taught about her Jewish heritage; she described the household as “white and middle class . . . full of books, with a father who encouraged me to read and write.”
1939 First publication, a play, Ariadne: A Play in Three Acts and Poems
1941 Another play published, Not I, But Death, a Play in One Act
1951 Graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Radcliffe College, the women’s school at Harvard 
Published first book of poems, A Change of World, chosen by W. H. Auden for the Yale Younger Poets Award
1953 Married Alfred Haskell Conrad; they had three sons within the next six years.  Conrad
     was a poor Jew of Eastern European descent, also an Economics professor at Harvard. 
     Because Rich’s father downplayed his own Jewishness, he thought that she married “the
     wrong kind of Jew.”  Because of this, Rich and her parents had minimal contact for some
     time following the marriage.
1955 Rich’s first child, David, was born and her second book were published in same month
1957 Second child, Paul, born
1959 Third child, Jacob, born
1960 Wrote in her diary: 
       "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 see myself, in my
      feelings toward these tiny guiltless beings, a monster of selfishness and intolerance.  Their
      voices wear away at my nerves, their constant needs, above all their need for simplicity
      and patience, fill me with despair at my own failures, despair too at my fate, which is to
      serves a function for which I was not fitted."
1963 Rich publishes Snapshots of a Daughter-in-Law, which marks her shift toward feminism.
      Wrote title poem “in a longer and looser way that I’d ever trusted myself with before.  It
     was an extraordinary relief to write that poem.” In this work, Rich abandoned the
     “universal,” or male, voice and was able to write for first time “directly about
     experiencing myself as a woman.”

     " When I was putting together the manuscript of my third book, which was called
      Snapshots of a Daughter-in-Law and which contains what I think of as my first overtly
      feminist poem, called “Snapshots of a Daughter-in-Law,” some friends of mine looked
      at the manuscript and said, “Now don’t give it this title. People will think it’s some sort
      of female diatribe or complaint.” I wanted that title, and I wanted that poem. And it was
      true: Critics said that book was too personal, too bitter (I don’t think the word “shrill”
      was being used then). But I knew this was material that would have to find a place in my
      poetry, in my work, that it was probably central to it – as indeed it came to be."
1966 Rich moves to New York with Conrad.  She becomes involved in Civil Rights, and
     later also becomes involved in the Women’s Movement.  She teaches in the NY Open
     Admissions and SEEK programs at City College in NYC.  These programs mainly cater
     to students from ghettos and other less fortunate areas.  Rich was supposed to help
     educate the students so that they would be better prepared for higher education.  She
     found many bright students, but felt qualms about teaching them the oppressor’s
     language, a language of racism.
**1970s critics think that the intermingling of politics and poetry undermines the integrity of
     Rich’s work; however, Rich does not feel that there is or should be a distinction
     between the two.
1970 Marriage breaks up, and Rich leaves the children with Conrad.  Alfred Haskell Conrad
     commits suicide.  Rich still speaks of her love for her husband and family, emphasizing
     that it was the situation/institution that she could not live in and rebelled against.

       "The passion of debating ideas with women was an erotic passion for me, and the
      risking of self with women that was necessary in order to win some truth out of the
      lies of the past was also erotic.  The suppressed lesbian I had been carrying in me
      since adolescence began to stretch her limbs."
1974 Awarded the National Book Award for Diving into the Wreck (1973).  Accepted with
     Audre Lorde and Alice Walker on behalf of all women. Donates monetary award to The
     Sisterhood of Black Single Mothers.

       "We symbolically join here in refusing the terms of patriarchal competition and in
      declaring that we will share this prize among us, to be used as best we can for
      women."
1976 Begins living with her partner Michelle Cliff, a historian and novelist.
          Delivers paper “It is the Lesbian in Us” to MLA (Modern Language Association)
     convention.  This paper later becomes “Compulsory heterosexuality and Lesbian
     Existence.”
1979 Stops teaching in the New York area (gives up professorship at Rutgers) and moves
     (with Cliff) to western Massachusetts.  Rich has since taught at Brandeis, Bryn Mawr,
     Rutgers, and Cornell Universities, among others.
**1980s  Rich’s political poetry finally looked at in light of both politics and poetry, and is
     appreciated for her fusion of the two elements. Rich becomes more aware of herself in
     relation to her social “location”
1981–     Edits Sinister Wisdom, “influential lesbian feminist journal” with Cliff.
1986 Becomes a professor of English and Women’s Studies at Stanford in California
1996 Rich is recipient of the Tanning Award for Mastery in the Art of Poetry
1999 Recipient of the Lannan Foundation’s Lifetime Achievement Award
NOW! Rich is currently living in Santa Cruz, California
Some Other awards Rich has Received
*Academy of Poetry Fellowship
*Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize
*Common Wealth Award in Literature
*MacArthur Fellowship
*two Guggenheims
       
Bibliography/Webliography:
Davidson, Harriet.  “Adrienne Rich.”  Modern American Women Writers.  Ed. Elaine
     Showalter.  New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1991.
Karp, Sheema Hamdani.  “Adrienne Cecile Rich.”  American Women Writers.  Ed. Lina
     Maniero.  New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Company, 1981.
McPherson, Diane.  “Adrienne Rich (1929–    ).”  Contemporary Lesbian Writers of the United
     States: a bio-bibliographical critical sourcebook.  Ed.  Sandra Pollock and Denise D.
     Knight.  Westport: Greenwood Press, 1993.
Meese, Elizabeth.  “Adrienne Rich.”  Dictionary of Literary Biography volume 67: Modern
     American critics since 1955.  Ed. Gregory S. Jay.  Detroit: Gale Research Co, 1988.
Pope, Deborah.  “Rich, Adrienne.”  Oxford Companion to Women’s Writing in the United
     States.  Ed. Cathy N. Davidson and Linda Wagner-Martin.  New York: Oxford
     University Press, 1995.
"Rich, Adrienne.”  Ed. Virginia Blain, Patricia Clements, Isobel Grundy.  The Feminist
     Companion to Literature in English.  New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990.
“Rich, Adrienne Cecile (1929– ).”  Ed. Kathryn Cullen-DuPont.  The Encyclopedia of Women’s
     History in America.  New York: Facts on File, Inc, 1996.
“Rich, Adrienne (Cecile) 1929–.”  Ed. Scot Peacock.  Contemporary Authors: New Revision
     Series, volume 74.  Detroit: Gale Research Co, 1999.
“Adrienne Rich.”  Http://barclayagency.com/rich.html
“Biographical Sketch of Adrienne Rich.”  Http://tqd.advanced.org/2847/authors/rich.htm
“Matthew Rothschild interviews Adrienne Rich in the January 1994 issue of The Progressive
magazine.”  Http://www.progressive.org/rothrich9401.htm
 
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