Product Description

This Norton Critical Edition presents the work of one of America's foremost poets. It moves well beyond the scope of its predecessor, Adrienne Rich's Poetry (1975), in giving proper recognition to Rich's extraordinary achievements in both poetry and prose in recent years. The result is a judiciously edited, sensibly annotated volume ideally suited for classroom study of one of our most distinguished working writers. 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 1985-1988 (1989), and An Atlas of the Difficult World (1991). Prose selections include "When We Dead Awaken: Writing as Re-Vision," Rich's canonical statement on feminism; "Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence," on being a lesbian in a heterosexual world; Rich's interview for American Poetry Review, which presents a full and frank discussion of her work; and her previously unpublished commentary on the genesis of the poem "Yom Kippur 1984."

The editors have also taken into account the many essays on Rich and reviews of her work that have been published since 1975. Some earlier biographical selections have been replaced with works that focus on the quality of Rich's writing and her place in twentieth-century American literature—not just as a poet, but as a woman, a lesbian, and a mother. Criticism includes thirteen reviews and interpretations of Rich's work by W. H. Auden, John Ashbery, Margaret Atwood, Helen Vendler, Judith McDaniel, Adrian Oktenberg, Charles Altieri, and Joanna Feit Diehl, among others. A second recent study by Albert Gelpi traces the events in Rich's life from which her work evolves. An updated Chronology and Selected Bibliography, as well as an expanded Index, are included. .

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #24359 in Books
• Published on: 1993-05-17
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 448 pages

About the Author
Adrienne Rich is the recipient of numerous honors, including the National Book Foundation’s 2006 Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters and the National Book Critics Circle Award. She lives in California.

Albert Gelpi is William Robertson Coe Professor of American Literature at Stanford University, where he has also taught since 1968. His books include Emily Dickinson: The Mind of the Poet, The Tenth Muse: The Psyche of the American Poet, and, most recently, A Coherent Splendor: The American Poetic Renaissance, 1910-1950. He is the editor of Wallace Stevens: The Poetics of Modernism and Denise Levertov: Selected Criticism and for a decade edited Cambridge Studies in American Literature and Culture.

Barbara Charlesworth Gelpi is Professor of English at Stanford University, where she has taught since 1968. She is the author of Shelleyís Goddess: Maternity, Language, Subjectivity and Dark Passages: The Decadent Consciousness in Victorian Literature, as well as numerous articles on, mainly, feminist and psychological literature. She is an editor of several important volumes, including Feminist Theory: A Critique of Ideologies and Women and Poverty.

Customer Reviews

Praise for Adrienne Rich
I'm currently teaching a six week course in Adrienne Rich's poetry and this book is excellent. It provides a good selection of her poems, plus significant prose pieces. If students choose to do so, they can read the reviews of her books, some critical essays and an interview. It's limited only in that it doesn't cover her more recent publications.

Good enough for school, maybe not leisure
I had to read this for an English Lit class, and it was great. I enjoyed it so much that semester that I didn't even sell it back! But I haven't read it since, so maybe it isn't that great unless you are forced to read it. As required reading, it really is one of the best and most interesting book of poems you'll likely read. For leisure.. maybe not.

Oh! By the way, the lesbian undertones were a great and interesting surprise! And also made writing about feminist theory REALLY EASY.

Selected Poems and Prose by Adrienne Rich
This book arrived in fairly good condition. A couple of pages were dogeared, but otherwise it was fine. As far as the text goes, it is very good, though quite obscure, poetry. You need a teacher to help you read it, and fortunately I have one. The footnotes were uneven.