Adrienne Rich

Rich's evolution from published poet to wife and mother to published poet again and thence to feminism and activism runs parallel with what a number of women of the 1950s and 1960s experienced. She evolved to write as herself rather than out of obedience to the expectations of others, whether those others were W, H, Auden, who admired her early work, or her father, who never seems to have admired her much at all. Sickel's biography of Rich is spare and respectful, giving Rich her due in pointing the way to women who were finding themselves to be quite different from what they had been told to be. Annotation c2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)