Adrienne Rich, one of the preeminent poets of the 20th and early 21st centuries, has died at the age of 82, according to the LA Times. I don’t really have much to add–she was an amazing poet and powerful presence on the poetic scene, and her influence can be seen in the work of tons of people writing today.
We reviewed her most recent collection, Tonight No Poetry Will Serve, last year, and reviewer Weston Cutter had very little exposure to her work before taking the book on. It was a journey of discovery for him, and he concluded his review this way:
“By the book’s end (and though there are six sections in the book, the collection’s fifth is a series of massive jabs and cuts: it’s as devastating a series of poems as I’ve read anywhere in awhile), the reader will be heightened, pushed into more aliveness: tonight—whenever, wherever we are—no poetry will serve, no verse can wrap neatly around the mess and scramble of things, but someone—Adrienne Rich, any of us—still has to try to make it.”
I think that’s a good way to describe her work as a whole. She will be missed.
