Understanding Adrienne Rich

143 Pages·2016·7.521 MB·English

by  Jeannette E. Riley

UNDERSTANDING
ADRIENNE RICH
UNDERSTANDING CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN LITERATURE
Matthew J. Bruccoli, Founding Editor
Linda Wagner-Martin, Series Editor
Volumes on
Edward Albee | Sherman Alexie | Nelson Algren | Paul Auster
Nicholson Baker | John Barth | Donald Barthelme | The Beats
Thomas Berger | The Black Mountain Poets | Robert Bly | T. C. Boyle
Truman Capote | Raymond Carver | Michael Chabon | Fred Chappell
Chicano Literature | Contemporary American Drama
Contemporary American Horror Fiction
Contemporary American Literary Theory
Contemporary American Science Fiction, 1926–1970
Contemporary American Science Fiction, 1970–2000
Contemporary Chicana Literature | Pat Conroy | Robert Coover | Don DeLillo
Philip K. Dick | James Dickey | E. L. Doctorow | Rita Dove | Dave Eggers
Louise Erdrich | John Gardner | George Garrett | Tim Gautreaux | William Gibson
John Hawkes | Joseph Heller | Lillian Hellman | Beth Henley | James Leo Herlihy
David Henry Hwang | John Irving | Randall Jarrell | Gish Jen | Charles Johnson
Diane Johnson | Edward P. Jones | Adrienne Kennedy | William Kennedy | Jack Kerouac
Jamaica Kincaid | Etheridge Knight | Tony Kushner | Ursula K. Le Guin
Jonathan Lethem | Denise Levertov | Bernard Malamud | David Mamet
Bobbie Ann Mason | Colum McCann | Cormac McCarthy | Jill McCorkle
Carson McCullers | W. S. Merwin | Arthur Miller | Stephen Millhauser | Lorrie Moore
Toni Morrison’s Fiction | Vladimir Nabokov | Gloria Naylor | Joyce Carol Oates
Tim O’Brien | Flannery O’Connor | Cynthia Ozick | Suzan-Lori Parks | Walker Percy
Katherine Anne Porter | Richard Powers | Reynolds Price | Annie Proulx
Thomas Pynchon | Ron Rash | Theodore Roethke | Philip Roth | Richard Russo
May Sarton | Hubert Selby, Jr. | Mary Lee Settle | Sam Shepard | Neil Simon
Isaac Bashevis Singer | Jane Smiley | Gary Snyder | William Stafford
Robert Stone | Anne Tyler | Gerald Vizenor | Kurt Vonnegut
David Foster Wallace | Robert Penn Warren | James Welch | Eudora Welty
Edmund White | Colson Whitehead | Tennessee Williams
August Wilson | Charles Wright
UNDERSTANDING

ADRIENNE RICH
Jeannette E. Riley
The University of South Carolina Press
© 2016 University of South Carolina
Published by the University of South Carolina Press
Columbia, South Carolina 29208
www.sc.edu/uscpress
24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
can be found at http://catalog.loc.gov/
ISBN 978-1-61117-699-5 (cloth)
ISBN 978-1-61117-700-8 (ebook)
Front cover photograph: Adrienne Rich, Santa Cruz, Ca., by Robert Giard, Photography
Collection, Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints, and Photographs, The New
York Public Library, Astor, Lenox, and Tilden Foundations. © Estate of Robert Giard.
This book would not have been written without the support of the women who
have mentored me throughout my life: my mother, Liz Riley, who taught me to
love words and reading; Minrose Gwin, for introducing me to Adrienne Rich
and guiding my development as a reader of poetry; Ruth Salvaggio, for engag-
ing me in the study of language and its power; Magali Carrera, for pushing me
to write this book and for exemplifying how writing is essential to what we do;
and Kathleen Torrens, for her keen editing eye and insightful comments along
the (long) way.
Thank you to the Estate of Adrienne Rich and Claire Reinersten at W. W.
Norton & Company, Inc., for assistance with permissions.

We must use what we have to invent what we desire.
Adrienne Rich, What Is Found There:
Notebooks on Poetry and Politics

CONTENTS
Series Editor’s Preface xi
Preface xiii
Abbreviations xvii
Chapter 1
Understanding Adrienne Rich 1
Chapter 2
“A Life I didn’t choose / chose me”: Transitions 16
Chapter 3
Feminist Poetics 39
Chapter 4
Entering History 58
Chapter 5
Poetry and Politics 84
Bibliography 105
Index 111