Professional Documents
Culture Documents
On Aunt Jennifer's Tigers
On Aunt Jennifer's Tigers
JENNIFERS
TIGERS
Adrienne Cecile Rich (May 16, 1929 March 27, 2012) was an
American poet, essayist and feminist. She was called "one of the
most widely read and influential poets of the second half of the 20th
century", and was credited with bringing "the oppression of women
and lesbians to the forefront of poetic discourse.
She was born in Baltimore in May 16, 1929. Her father, the
renowned pathologist Arnold Rice Rich belonged to a Jewish family,
was the Chairman of Pathology at The Johns Hopkins Medical
School, and her mother, Helen Elizabeth (Jones) Rich (a Southern
Protestant), was a concert pianist (before she married) and a
composer.
Rich died on March 27, 2012, at the age of 82 in her Santa Cruz,
California home. Her son, Pablo Conrad, reported that her death
resulted from long-term rheumatoid arthritis.
Selected awards and honours1950: Yale Younger Poets Award for A Change of World.
1952: Guggenheim Fellowship
1960: National Institute of Arts and Letters Award
1970: Shelley Memorial Award
1974: National Book Award for Poetry (a split award) for Diving into the Wreck
1979: Honorary Doctorate Smith College
1986: Inaugural Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize
1989: Honorary doctorate from Harvard University
1989: National Poetry Association Award for Distinguished Service to the Art of Poetry
1990: William Whitehead Award for Lifetime Achievement (for gay or lesbian writing)
1991: Common Wealth Award of Distinguished Service
1991: Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
1992: Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize
1992: Poets' Prize for Atlas of the Difficult World
1992: Frost Medal
1992: Academy of American Poets Fellowship
1994: MacArthur Fellowship
1996: Wallace Stevens Award
1997: National Medal of Arts (refused)
1999: Lifetime Achievement Award from the Lannan Foundation
2006: National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters
2010: Lifetime Recognition Award from the Griffin Poetry Prize
Rich's works
Non fiction books
Each year links to its corresponding "[year] in literature"
article:
1976: Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and
Institution. Norton. ISBN 978-0-393-31284-3.
1979: On Lies, Secrets and Silence: Selected Prose, 19661978
1986: Blood, Bread, and Poetry: Selected Prose, 19791985
(Includes the noted essay: "Compulsory Heterosexuality and
Lesbian Existence")
1993: What Is Found There: Notebooks on Poetry and Politics
2001: Arts of the Possible: Essays and Conversations. W.W.
Norton. ISBN 978-0-393-05045-5.
2007: Poetry and Commitment: An Essay
2009: A Human Eye: Essays on Art in Society, 19972008
Poetry collections
1951: A Change of World. Yale University Press.
1955: The Diamond Cutters, and Other Poems. Harper.
1963: Snapshots of a daughter-in-law: poems, 1954-1962. Harper & Row.
1966: Necessities of life: poems, 1962-1965. W.W. Norton.
1967: Selected Poems. Chatto & Hogarth P Windus.
1969: Leaflets. W.W. Norton. ISBN 978-0-03-930419-5.
1971: The Will to Change: Poems 1968-1970. Norton.
1973: Diving into the Wreck. W.W. Norton. ISBN 978-0-393-31163-1.
1975: Poems: Selected and New, 1950-1974. Norton. ISBN 978-0-393-04392-1.
1976: Twenty-one Love Poems. Effie's Press.
1978: The Dream of a Common Language. Norton. ISBN 978-0-393-04502-4.
1982: A Wild Patience Has Taken Me this Far: Poems 1978-1981. W. W. Norton & Company, Incorporated.
ISBN 978-0-393-31037-5. (reprint 1993)
1983: Sources. Heyeck Press.
1984: The Fact of a Doorframe: Poems Selected and New, 1950-1984. W. W. Norton & Company,
Incorporated. ISBN 978-0-393-31075-7.
1986: Your Native Land, Your Life: Poems. Norton. ISBN 978-0-393-02318-3.
1989: Times Power: Poems, 1985-1988. Norton. 1989. ISBN 978-0-393-02677-1.
1991: An Atlas of the Difficult World: Poems 1988-1991. Norton. ISBN 978-0-393-03069-3.
1993: Collected Early Poems, 1950-1970. W. W. Norton & Company, Incorporated. ISBN 978-0-393-31385-7.
1995: Dark Fields of the Republic: Poems, 1991-1995. W.W. Norton. ISBN 978-0-393-03868-2.
1996: Selected poems, 1950-1995. Salmon Pub.. ISBN 978-1-897648-78-0.
1999: Midnight Salvage: Poems, 1995-1998. Norton. ISBN 978-0-393-04682-3.
2001: Fox: Poems 1998-2000. W W Norton & Co Inc. ISBN 978-0-393-32377-1. (reprint 2003)
2004: The School Among the Ruins: Poems, 2000-2004. W. W. Norton & Co.. ISBN 978-0-393-32755-7.
2007: Telephone Ringing in the Labyrinth: Poems 20042006. ISBN 978-0-393-06565-7.
2010: Tonight No Poetry Will Serve: Poems 2007-2010. ISBN 0-393-07967-8.
SYMBOLS USED
ANALYSIS
Wedding Bands