by Jeannette E. Riley (Author)
The journey of an important feminist writer through poetry, prose, and politics
Among the most celebrated American poets of the past half century, Adrienne Rich was the recipient of numerous awards, including the Bollingen Prize, the National Book Award, and the Lannan Lifetime Achievement Award. In Understanding Adrienne Rich, Jeannette E. Riley assesses the full scope of Rich's career from 1957 to her death in 2012 through a chronological exploration of her poetry and prose.
Riley details the evolution of Rich's feminist poetics as she investigated issues of identity, sexuality, gender, the desire to reclaim women's history, and what she terms "the dream of a common language." Throughout the book she documents Rich's gradually developing assertion that poetry can create social change and engage people in the democratic process. Interweaving explications of Rich's poetry with analysis of her prose, Riley offers a close look at the development of the author's voice from formalist poet to feminist visionary to citizen poet.
Author Biography
Jeannette E. Riley is a professor of English and women's and gender studies at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth. Riley's research focuses on women's literature, with an emphasis on contemporary women writers and feminist theory. Her writings on Adrienne Rich have appeared in "Catch if you can your country's moment" Recovery and Regeneration in the Poetry of Adrienne Rich, From Motherhood to Mothering: The Legacy of Adrienne Rich's Of Woman Born, and Soundings: An Interdisciplinary Journal.