Adrienne Rich

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American writer known for intensely personal, political poetry which reflects the feminist revolution. She has won the National Book Award. Raised in an affluent, literary family, she graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Radcliffe. In 1951 she was first published with "A Change of World." Rich taught as a Columbia professor 1967-1969 and professor of English at Rutgers after 1976. She is a translator of Dutch, Yiddish and Russian poems. Rich married 6/26/1953, had three sons and was widowed 10/20/1970. In 1976, Rich began her partnership with Jamaican-born novelist and editor Michelle Cliff, which lasted until Rich's death. In her controversial work 'Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution,' published the same year, Rich acknowledged that, for her, lesbianism was a political as well as a personal issue, writing, "The suppressed lesbian I had been carrying in me since adolescence began to stretch her limbs." Rich died on March 27, 2012, at the age of 82 in her Santa Cruz, California home, from long-term rheumatoid arthritis. She was survived by her sons, two grandchildren and her partner Michelle Cliff. Link to Wikipedia biography