Adrienne Rich (1929 - 2012)

Thu May 16, 1929

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Image: Black and white photograph of Adrienne Rich sitting at a desk, surrounded by piles of books. Photo by Neal Boenzi [poetryfoundation.org]

Adrienne Cecile Rich, born on this day in 1929, was a queer American poet, essayist and feminist. She was called “one of America’s foremost public intellectuals” by the Poetry Foundation and is credited with bringing “the oppression of women and lesbians to the forefront of poetic discourse” by the New York Times.

Rich criticized rigid forms of feminist identities, and valorized what she coined the “lesbian continuum”, which is a female continuum of solidarity and creativity that impacts and fills women’s lives. Notable works by Rich include “On Lies, Secrets, and Silence” (1979), “Blood, Bread, and Poetry: Selected Prose” (1986), and “The Dream of a Common Language” (1978).

“False history gets made all day, any day, the truth of the new is never on the news.”

- Adrienne Rich