Adrienne Rich: Gone

Adrienne Rich, in her poetry, her books and her speaking has been with many of us since we first discovered politics or poetry. Older than the baby-boomer generation and close to the Beats she won the Yale Younger Poets prize in 1951 with “A Change of World.”  Yet she was a constant presence in anti-war rallies from the mid 1960s to the end of the US war in Vietnam.  Her anger, which she was proud of, manifested itself in many of her poems.

In 1968, she signed the “Writers and Editors War Tax Protest” pledge, vowing to refuse tax payments in protest against the Vietnam-America War.[13] Her collections from this period include Necessities of Life (1966), Leaflets (1969), and The Will to Change (1971), which reflect increasingly radical political content and interest in poetic form.[12] [from WikiPedia]

Others poems were sweet and tender without a drop of the maudlin.  Here are two.

She died in Santa Cruz, CA at the age of 82. The LA Times has a long, informative obituary.