Collected poems, 1950-2012 / Adrienne Rich.

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Adrienne Rich was the singular voice of her generation and one of our most important American poets. She brought discussions of gender, race, and class to the forefront of poetical discourse, pushing formal boundaries and consistently examining both self and society.

This collected volume traces the evolution of her poetry, from her earliest work, which was formally exact and decorous, to her later work, which became increasingly radical in both its free-verse form and feminist and political content. The entire body of her poetry is on display in this vast volume, including the National Book Award-winning Diving Into the Wreck and her prize-winning Atlas of the Difficult World.

The Collected Poems of Adrienne Rich gathers and memorializes all of her boldly political, formally ambitious, thoughtful, and lucid work, the whole of which makes her one of the most prolific and influential poets of our time.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

Over the six decades of her writing career, Rich (1929-2012) published a new collection nearly every four years, yet the size of this anthology is surprising for not only its quantity but also for the unflagging quality of its craft and vision. An outspoken feminist and political activist, Rich refused to compromise or silence herself in "the purposeless exchange/ of consciousness for the absence/ of pain," and though her poems often begin with granular, personal observations ("There's a place between two stands of trees where the grass grows uphill"), they unfold into complex maps of wider awareness and realization ("this is not somewhere else but here,/ our country moving closer to its own truth and dread,/ its own ways of making people disappear.") Tensions between private and public, between acceptance and resistance, sparked the dynamic that challenged both her own and her readers' assumptions about their lives and responsibilities. VERDICT An "accurate dreamer" who voiced "her own inward scream," Rich is an indispensable poet, whose work parallels and brings into focus the transformative zeitgeist of her era. This magisterial compendium forcefully suggests that era has not yet passed. [See Prepub Alert, 12/7/15.]-Fred Muratori, Cornell Univ. Lib., Ithaca, NY © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Booklist Review

*Starred Review* This mammoth and vital volume covering 62 years and more than 20 poetry collections affirms Adrienne Rich's (1929-2012) standing as a major poet. In her first book, A Change of World (1951), which W. H. Auden chose for the Yale Series of Younger Poets Award, Rich is fluent in classical forms and carefully camouflaged by a refined, gracious, impersonal voice, though certain images and phrases a storm, a ghost, death, and the phrase estranged intensity presage inner turmoil and burgeoning protest. In her second collection, Snapshots of a Daughter-in-Law (1963), Rich has found her genuine voice, direct and stinging, as in this line from the title poem, A thinking woman sleeps with monsters. In Diving into the Wreck: Poems, 1971-1972), a National Book Award winner, Rich, entwining the personal and the political, questions prevailing notions about war, sexuality, justice, and her Jewish heritage, steadily sharpening her moral imperative. Moving forward, her dramatic poems incisively critique human nature and societal malfunction as she creates lyrical and narrative works, monologues, and prose poems, all charged with lucid sensitivity and radical urgency. A MacArthur fellow and the recipient of numerous distinguished awards, including a National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, Rich declined the National Medal of Arts in 1997 to protest Congress' attempt to shut down the National Endowment for the Arts. A collection for the ages showcasing the work of a valiantly forthright, artistically adventurous, compassionate, and immensely influential poet of conscience.--Seaman, Donna Copyright 2016 Booklist