Adrienne Rich

Adrienne Rich (May 16th, 1929 - March 27th, 2012) was known as a talented and influential poet and non-fiction writer. Her works focused on the visibility of lesbianism and feminism in general.

Biography
Maryland native, Adrienne Rich was a member of a moderately successful family, and was raised as a Christian in Baltimore. She had a mother and a father, as well as two younger sisters. She graduated from Radcliffe College in 1951 where her first series of poetry was selected for a Yale Series of Younger Poets Award. Her talent was apparent at a young age.

She shortly after married a professor named Alfred Conrad and had three boys. During this time was when her poetry was said to take a more feminist turn. After her poetry collections titled Snapshots of a Daughter in Law, "which was a much more personal work examining her female identity, reflecting the increasing tensions she experienced as a wife and mother in the 1950s" (wikipedia) From there, her work continued to be more and more controversial and unapologetically confrontational on political issues. It has been said that during this time her therapy had a huge impact on her sudden change.

It wasn't just her poetry that shifted, it was her entire life. She left her husband, came out as a lesbian, stopped talking to friends and swapped the east coast for the west. Something happened during those therapist sessions that changed her entire outlook on life.

It was from there that she became somewhat of a feminist icon. She "saw poetry as a keen-edged beacon by which women’s lives — and women’s consciousness — could be illuminated." (nytimes). Her work solely became about empowering women, and lesbians in particular.

Soon after coming out, Rich settled down with her wife, Michelle Cliff, another writer, where they continued a life of activism and solidarity together.

Famous Article
The piece of poetry that launched Rich into the world of fame was the collection, "Diving Into The Wreck". This work earned her the National Book Award for Poetry in 1973.

Another piece of work that is extremely well known by Rich is her essay "Compulsory Heterosexuality" which explains and deciphers both lesbian existence and a term she coined in which she called the lesbian continuum. This piece essentially argues that every woman exists on the lesbian continuum which is a scale to allow women to process their emotional feelings without the fear of being labeled a lesbian. She also argues that the patriarchal society in which we live enforces heterosexuality by the social norms and negative portrayal of lesbianism. Rich wanted heterosexual women to be able to critically analyze their own sexuality and the system that built it.

Notable Works
A Change Of World - 1951

Snapshots of a Daughter-in-Law: Poems - 1954-1962

Diving into the Wreck: Poems - 1971-1972

Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Institution and Experience - 1976

A Human Eye: Essays on Art in Society - 2009

Famous Scandal
In 1997, Rich declined the National Medal Of Arts because of the current administration vote to end the National Endowment for the Arts.