Adrienne Rich

In Of Woman Born, originally published in 1976, influential poet and feminist Adrienne Rich examines the patriarchic systems and political institutions that define motherhood. Exploring her own experience—as a woman, a poet, a feminist, and a mother—she finds the act of mothering to be both determined by and distinct from the institution of motherhood as it is imposed on all...

Later Poems: Selected and New brings together a remarkable body of work by the celebrated poet. Included are Adrienne Rich's own selections from twelve volumes of published works, including the National Book Award–winning Diving into the Wreck, An Atlas of the Difficult World, and her final volume, Tonight No Poetry Will Serve, along with ten powerful new poems, previously uncollected....

The Dream of a Common Language explores the contours of a woman's heart and mind in language for everybody—language whose plainness, laughter, questions, and nobility everyone can respond to. No one is writing better or more needed verse than this. Boston Evening Globe

Sixty years of poems from a National Book Award winner and pioneering writer, activist, and intellectual. Author of more than thirty books, Adrienne Rich was the singular voice of her generation, bringing discussions of gender, race, and class to the forefront of poetical discourse. Selected Poems offers a full and representative selection of poems from the whole of Rich’s long...

Diving into the Wreck is a powerful collection that invites readers into the depths of exploration and introspection. "I came to explore the wreck. / The words are purposes. / The words are maps. / I came to see the damage that was done / and the treasures that prevail." These provocative poems move with the power of Adrienne Rich's...

Demonstrating the lasting brilliance of her voice and her prophetic vision, Essential Essays showcases Adrienne Rich's singular ability to unite the political, personal, and poetical. The essays selected here by feminist scholar Sandra M. Gilbert range from the 1960s to 2006, emphasizing Rich's lifelong intellectual engagement and fearless prose exploration of feminism, social justice, poetry, race, homosexuality, and identity.

In both poetry and prose, the editors have chosen selections intended to give readers a clear sense of Rich's evolution and accomplishment. Many of the poems in this expanded collection are from Rich's five recent volumes—The Dream of a Common Language (1978), A Wild Patience Has Taken Me This Far (1981), Your Native Land, Your Life (1986), Time's Power: Poems...

In this collection of prose writings, one of America's foremost poets and feminist theorists reflects upon themes that have shaped her life and work. At issue are the politics of language; the uses of scholarship; and the topics of racism, history, and motherhood among others called forth by Rich as "part of the effort to define a female consciousness which...