Understanding Adrienne Rich

"Adrienne Rich took on the issues of our time as no one before or since and created a brand-new idiom to convey a poetry of witness and essays of extraordinary brilliance. In Understanding Adrienne Rich, Jeannette E. Riley does Rich and her work a great service: drawing a map that continually moves between the life and the word with a brilliance of its own. This is an important contribution to understanding and appreciating one of our truly great voices."—Margaret Randall, author of She Becomes Time and Haydée Santamaría, Cuban Revolutionary: She Led by Transgression

"Throughout her career, Adrienne Rich resisted all attempts to limit or contain the wild energy of language and consciousness, insisting on the power of poetry to act in the political world. Clear and complex in equal measure, Jeannette E. Riley's Understanding Adrienne Rich is an exemplary response to Rich's call. Combining a convincing overview of the poet's career with attentive readings of crucial poems, Riley provides an ideal introduction for general readers and a solid foundation for future critical conversations."—Craig Werner, author of Adrienne Rich: The Poet and Her Critics