Reading Adrienne Rich with Hilary Holladay

Adrienne Rich’s first volume of poetry was published when she was six years old.

At age sixteen, she decided she wanted to make a career out of writing and once she declared her plans to write, her literary ambitions intensified. Throughout her long life and career, she marshaled the power of her formidable mind in the service of art and social justice.

Join Hilary Holladay, author of The Power of Adrienne Rich, a New York Times’s Top Book of 2020, for a two-session dive into Rich’s life and extraordinary poems. Drawing on a wealth of unpublished materials, including Rich’s correspondence and in-depth interviews with numerous people who knew her, Holladay portrays the internationally renowned poet, feminist and lesbian icon in full dimension and vivid, human detail, and explores her nuanced, constantly developing poetry.

Poems students should read in preparation for the class:

Tue, Mar 16:
“Stepping Backward”
“The Middle-Aged”
“Snapshots of a Daughter-in-Law”
“Face to Face”
“November 1968”
“Song”
“Diving into the Wreck”

Tue, Mar 23:
“Power"
“I” and “IV,” from “Twenty-One Love Poems”
“Nights and Days”
“Integrity”
“For Memory”
“In Memoriam: D.K.”
“Camino Real”

Copies of The Power of Adrienne Rich and Adrienne Rich’s poetry can be purchased from bookshop.org.