The Sophian

Issue date: 10/17/02 Section: News/Features

Poet Adrienne Rich

A world renowned poet, activist and scholar and the author of over fifteen volumes of poetry and four books of prose, Adrienne Rich has accomplished much in her lifetime. She has won countless awards, including the Tanning Award, the Academy of Poetry Fellowship, two Guggenheims and the National Book Award, and her thoughts have been cherished and embraced by countless others without official awards to bestow upon her. In 1997 she made headlines by declining the National Medal for the Arts, claiming, "I cannot accept such an award from President Clinton or this White House because the very meaning of art as I understand it is incompatible with the cynical politics of this administration." These controversial words were heralded by many and reflected her dedication to questioning and challenging oppressive political and social institutions.

It is one thing to be inspiring in a poetic and literary way, but it is quite another to have an impact on political and social systems. Rich has managed to combine both artfully; her writings cover a breadth of issues at the core of the nation and the world as a whole including homophobia, racism, classism and gender. She writes about each with frankness and immediacy, characteristics that have come to describe her work as a whole. Her latest works are "Fox: Poems 1998-2000" and "Arts of the Possible: Essays and Conversations."  

Rich spoke recently with Sophian Features Editor Amanda Houpt.


A.H.: I just wanted first to get a brief history of how you know President Christ. I spoke to Paul Alpers (her husband) about this interview and he gave me bit of that history, but I was just wondering about your description of your relationship prior to this. 

A.R.: "Well, I really don't know her at all well. I think we have met a couple of times, but Paul Alpers is a very old friend of mine. I knew him when he was a graduate student at Harvard and I was living in Cambridge, and so I have been following Carol Christ's career through Paul really."


A.H.: As you well know, Smith is a women's college, and that is controversial. There is a lot of speculation about whether not accepting biologically born men contradicts the College's belief in the equality of the sexes or not. People also question how practical it is. How do you view women's education? 

A.R: "Well, that is a large question and I have written about that. I gave the commencement address at Smith in — I believe — 1979. I called it 'What Does a Woman Need to Know?' At that time Smith had its first female president, Jill Conway, and it was at a kind of cusp of the women's movement. The women's movement in the United States was still very active, but Smith at that time had no women's studies [program] at all that I could find out about and I talked about [the need] for educated women to know the history of women, not only women of their own class or race, but a multiplicity of women.

Continued...

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