ADRIENNE RICH, 1929-2012 A Poet of Unswerving Vision, "Triply marginalized --woman, lesbian and Jew"

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4. Adrienne Rich dies at 82; feminist poet and essayist (LA Times obit)

Adrienne Rich dies at 82; feminist poet and essayist

Adrienne Rich, a much-awarded feminist poet and essayist, dies at 82. She 'was a voice for the feminist movement when it was just starting and didn't have a voice,' an expert says.



Poet Adrienne Rich in May 1987. She moved from the East to the warmer climate of Santa Cruz to help her rheumatoid arthritis. On the West Coast she taught at San Jose State, Scripps College and elsewhere. (Neal Boenzi / New York Times / May 8, 1987)

By Mary Rourke, Special to the Los Angeles Times
March 28, 2012, 8:31 p.m.

Adrienne Rich, a pioneering feminist poet and essayist who challenged what she considered to be the myths of the American dream and subsequently received high literary honors, died Tuesday at her home in Santa Cruz. She was 82.

The cause was complications from the rheumatoid arthritis that had plagued her for much of her life, said a son, Pablo Conrad.

"Adrienne Rich made a very important contribution to poetry," Helen Vendler, a Harvard University professor and literary critic told The Times in 2005. "She was able to articulate a modern American conscience. She had the command of language and the imagery to express it."

Rich came of age during the social upheaval of the 1960s and '70s and was best known as an advocate of women's rights, which she explored in poetry and prose. But she also passionately addressed the antiwar movement and wrote of the marginalized and underprivileged.

http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-me-adrienne-rich-20120329,0,4258797.story