Adrienne Rich

Poet, essayist, and cultural critic Adrienne Rich is among the most widely admired and thought provoking writers in the United States. She received the Yale Younger Poets Award in 1951, at the age of twenty-one, and has since authored sixteen volumes of poetry, including Diving into the Wreck (1972), for which she received the National Book Award. Her essays and poems are taught across the country in most English programs and Women's Studies courses. She is the recipient of nearly every major literary award including the 1999 Lannan Foundation Lifetime Achievement award, an Academy of American Poets Fellowship, and the MacArthur "genius" grant.

April 18-19, 2005, Discussion and Reading as a KWH Fellow

• Reading: Streaming Video
• Reading: Downloadable Video
• Discussion: Streaming Video
• Discussion: Downloadable Video
• See the Kelly Writers House calendar entry for more about this event
• Photos of Rich's visit

Introductions

1. Introduction by Al Filreis (5:58): MP3
2. Introduction by Alicia Oltuski (4:41): MP3
3. Opening RemarksMP3

Discussion and Readings

Listen to the whole discussion, moderated by Al Filreis MP3.

1. Discussion of Wait MP3
2. Trying to talk of the man and American nationalism MP3
3. On then and now in poetry MP3
4. Rich's creative process MP3
5. Teaching Poetry to those who fear it MP3
6. Books that have influenced Rich MP3
7. Happiness as the opposite of guilt MP3
8. On the sacred MP3
9. On June Jordan MP3
10. Rich reads from a poem written for June Jordan MP3
11. Judaism in Rich's poetry MP3
12. Sexual desire in poetry MP3
13. How imagination leads us to surpass ourselves MP3
14. Rich reads from an essay on the survival of poetry MP3
15. Rich reads from the end of Then or Now MP3

From Midnight Salvage (1999)

1. Introduction to Letters to a Young Poet (0:26): MP3
2. Letters to a Young Poet (4:27): MP3
3. Introduction to The Art of Translation (0:41)MP3
4. The Art of Translation (2:36)MP3

From Dark Fields of the Republic(1995)

1. Introduction to What Kind of Times Are These? (0:29)MP3
2. What Kind of Times Are These? (1:17)MP3
3. Introduction to From Pierced Darkness, New York, December (0:10)MP3
4. From Pierced Darkness, New York, December (3:52)MP3

From Fox

1. Introduction to Victory (1:04)MP3
2. Victory (3:45)
3. Introduction to Rauschenberg's Bed (1:23)MP3
4. Rauschenberg's Bed (1:44)MP3

From The School Among the Ruins: Poems 2000-2004

1. Introduction to Centaur's Requiem (0:33): MP3
2. Centaur's Requiem (0:56): MP3
3. Introduction to Equinox (0:06): MP3
4. Equinox (2:09): MP3
5. Introduction to Transparencies (0:16): MP3
6. Transparencies (2:04): MP3
7. Introduction to Alternating Current (0:59): MP3
8. Alternating Current (4:20): MP3
9. Introduction to Wait (0:32): MP3
10. Wait (0:34): MP3

New Poems

1. Introduction to As Ever (0:34): MP3
2. As Ever (0:32): MP3 [Tribute to Robert Creeley:text of poem]
3. Introduction to Behind the Motel (0:51): MP3
4. Behind the Motel (1:19): MP3
5. Unknown Quanity (0:51): MP3
6. Introduction to Wallpaper (0:33): MP3
7. Wallpaper (2:22): MP3

Praise from Adrienne Rich

• Adrienne Rich comments on her afternoon with the students in the Fellows seminar just before the reading on April 18, 2005: MP3
• Rich praises AL Filreis as host of the Writers House Fellows: MP3
• Rich also commends Filreis for his teaching: MP3

Pennsound Podcast

Podcast #11: MP3

1. Introduction by Robert Creeley (1:44): MP3
2. Poet's introductory remarks (2:27): MP3
3. Letters (March, 1969) (5:36): MP3
4. On Edges (1968) (1:50)MP3
5. Divisions of Labor (1988) (1:54): MP3
6. Marghanita (3:33): MP3
7. Victor (5:24): MP3
8. Driving Home From Robin Blaser's Reading (4 short poems) (3:04): MP3
9. Fox (1:33): MP3
10. Terza Rima (11:12): MP3
11. Sleepwalking Next to Death (6:26): MP3

1. Diving Into the Wreck (3:06): MP3 (INCOMPLETE: final section of poem is cut off)
2. Excerpt from 21 Love Poems (3:15): MP3
3. Snapshots of a Daugther-In-Law (8:12): MP3

• A reading excerpt from Fox, SUNY-Buffalo, October 19, 2000: MP3
• A 1974 Reading: MP3 & RealAudio (38:38)
• Poemtalk Podcast #2 on Rich's Wait: MP3

• November 26, 2008: "New PennSound Podcasts Featuring Sieburth, Rich, Wershler-Henry"
• January 8, 2007: "PoemTalk #2: Adrienne Rich's 'Wait'"