Adrienne Rich, a pioneering feminist poet and essayist who challenged what she considered to be the myths of the American dream and subsequently received high literary honors, died Tuesday at her home in Santa Cruz, Calif. She was 82.
Critics consider Rich's 1962 poem "Prospective Immigrants Please Note" to be one of her more enduring. It voiced "a dilemma that extends across time," according to Harvard's Vendler, and reads in part:
Either you will
go through this door
or you will not go through
If you go through
there is always the risk
of remembering your name. ...
The door itself makes no promises.
It is only a door.
"Go through the door and you leave certain things behind," Vendler said. "It's the idea of consciousness-raising, in women, men, immigrants and others." Issues of inequality based on race, education and financial status fueled Rich's writing, but she was particularly critical of imbalance between the sexes. It was a recurring theme in her work dating to 1951, her senior year at Radcliffe College, when she published her first book of poems, "A Change of World."
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