Adrienne Rich

    My Pictures  /  My Videos                  "The connections between and among women are the most feared, the most problematic, and the most potentially transforming forces on the planet."

78 Years

                                                                                Northern California

 

 

 About Me:

 

First Name: Adrienne

Last Name: Rich

Born: May 16, 1929

Hometown: Baltimore, Maryland

Education: College Graduate

Orientation: Lesbian

Status: In a Relationship

Married: Divorced

 

 

Hello, my name is Adrienne. Let me tell you a bit about my self. I grew up the daughter of a doctor and was exposed to ‘literate culture and reading’ from an early age. I was home-schooled by my mother until the fourth grade, but always showed an early interest in writing and fell in love with my father's extensive Victorian literature collection.After graduating in 1951 from Radcliffe College, I was selected by W.H. Auden for the Yale Series of Younger Poets prize for A Change of World that same year. In 1953 I married Harvard University economist Alfred H. Conrad. Two years later, I published my second volume of poetry called, The Diamond Cutters. Before I turned thirty I had three sons with Alfred. It was after this when my life began to change along with my poetry. During the 60's my work began to focus on exploring such themes as women’s role in society, racism, and the Vietnam war. As I began exporing these areas and taking a part in the feminist movement, I began playing the role of a women's liberation leader. In 1970, I left my husband, who commited suicide later that year. I now live in Northern California with my life partner since 1976, Michele Cliff, editor and writer.

 

 

 

It was in 1973, in the midst of the feminist and civil rights movements, the Vietnam War, and my own personal distress that I wrote Diving into the Wreck, a collection of exploratory and often angry poems, which help me to recieve the National Book Award in 1974. I happily accepted the award on behalf of all women and shared it with my fellow nominees, Alice Walker and Audre Lorde.  Over the last forty years I have published more than sixteen volumes of poetry and four books of nonfiction prose. Here is a brief excerpt of Diving Into the Wreck:

 

 

" We are, I am, you are

 

by cowardice or courage

 

the one who find our way

 

back to this scene

 

carrying a knife, a camera

 

a book of myths

 

in which

 

our names do not appear."

 

 

What is your view of Diving Into the Wreck?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

COMMENTS

 

Posted by: Vanessa

2007-10-29

 

Diving Into the Wreck discusses history and the way wome have been characterized by society. The "book of myths" refers to those women who aren't acknowledged in history and who don't conform to society's pressure. I am known for my playing a large role as a feminist and stand for women power and my name along with many other women's names do not show up in the "book of myths" because we do not follow beliefs that we are given, we follow beliefs in which we believe in.

 

 

 

Posted by: Rien

2002-06-05

 

It is a deep impression of unconsistency. If you read the line," My flippers cripple me," You understand the depth that is meant.

 

 

Posted by: kevin

2002-12-04

 

This poem is really about an individual finding themselves. The entire metaphor is the diver and the ship wreck. A person protects themselves before seeking their self-discovery with all of the diving gear because of the unknown. A person will always discover a "wreck" in their past but most look past that for the treasures that have been buried away. The last couple stanzas speak of how we are all together in this feat of self-discovery and we must always seek our past and ourselves in ORDER to create our future.

 

 

Posted by:SFitz

2003-04-18

 

 Adrienne was a Civil Rights and anti-war activist in the 60s. She consistently intertwines politics and poetry. This poem was written in 1973, and is about the feminist struggle. She is alone in this journey to the depths of the earth, to a place pre-civilization, yet she has the comfort of knowing others before her have taken the same journey. It is a journey that must be taken alone, although in much of Rich's writing she refers to a group of people, or even society as a whole, as one. The wreck is the damage that has been done over hundreds, thousands of years that has led to the oppression or at least the inequality of women, and a patriarchal society. Her book of myths are the falsities instilled in the minds of those in Western society, including gender roles, which she disspells when she incorporates both man and woman into her body. The book of myths ("in which our names do not appear") may also be the Bible, seeing as how women are portrayed as the root of sin and men as our Lord and saviors. Main idea of the poem: "I came to explore the wreck... the damage that was done and the treasures that prevail...I am she: I am he."

Basically, to achieve an ideal world, one would have to travel backward to a time before humans existed (since gender roles began in theory with Adam and Eve the creator of sin) and we would have to start EVERYTHING over from scratch- "And besides/ you breathe differently down here." We would have to create a society minus gender roles and become one people- "the one who find our way back to this scene."

 

 

 

            Influences                                                                                                    

 

-Can Be Comared to Allen Ginsburg -James Baldwin -William Butler Yeats -Father -Feminism -Lesbianism -Life as a Mother -My Experiences as a Woman

 

 

          Poems Written                   

 

A Valediction Forbidding Mourning Aunt Jennifer's Tigers Burning Oneself Out Cartographies of Silence Diving Into the Wreck Final Notions For the Dead For the Record From a Survivor From an Atlas of the Difficult World Implosions In a Classroom In Those Years Integrity Living In Sin Miracle Ice Cream Moving In Winter November 1968 Orion Our Whole Life Paula Becker to Clara Westhoff Planetarium Power Prospective Immigrants Please Note Rural Reflections Shattered Head Snapshots of a Daughter-In-Law Stepping Backward Two Songs Victory Women

 

Education

 

Radcliffe College Alumni Graduated Phi Beta Kappa 1951

 

                Awards

 

2 Guggenheim Fellowships Fellowship of the Academy of American Poets Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize Fund for Human Dignity Award of the National Gay Task Force Lambda Book Award Poets' Prize. Wallace Stevens Award National Bokk Critics Award Lenore Marshall/Nation Prize Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Poetry MacArthur Fellowship Dorothea Tanning Prize of the Academy of American Poets National Medal for the Arts (Which I Refused)