Fiery poet, Adrienne Rich, has died

Thu, 03/29/2012 - 10:18am by sernabad

Adrienne Rich, fiercely focused poet who set her laser beam on feminism and social justice, has died.

Rich, described as one of "...the best-known American public intellectuals..., graduated from Radcliffe in 1951, the year she received the first of many note-worthy awards. W.H. Auden published her A Change of World in the Yale Younger Poets series. She spared no emotion as her political and feminist consciousness solidified when, after 17 years of marriage and three sons, Ms. Rich embraced her lesbianism and championed the rights of gays and lesbians for the rest of her life.

She also won a MacArthur Foundation "genius" award (1994) and The National Book Award for poetry for Diving into the Wreck (1973) which she shared with Allen Ginsberg (The Fall of America: Poems of these States, 1965-1971, 1973). In 1997, she declined to accept the U.S.'s highest award for artists, The National Medal of Arts, for political reasons.

Ms. Rich, who was 82, died from complication of rheumatoid arthritis, a lifelong ailment.