My old pal Sarah Van Arsdale has a book coming out this month, Grand Isle, her third novel. Check out her funny, illustrated blog. Her latest post is a short tribute to Adrienne Rich which links to this great essay about Rich by Susan Stinson on Lambda Literary. Susan describes very eloquently the deep, encompassing way that Rich’s work shaped her own writing and thinking.
I just heard that Adrienne Rich died. The NY Times obituary ends with this:
What she and her sisters-in-arms were fighting to achieve, she said, was simply this: “the creation of a society without domination.”
Of course her work had a huge influence on me. In fact a chapter of my new book revolves around her. The excerpt above is from a lecture I heard her deliver when I was 23. I wrote down practically everything she said in a notebook.
I wish I had time to write more now but I have just begun my fellowship at the U of Chicago and am so busy I can’t breathe. But here’s another Rich reference. Back when I was still struggling with my book I wrote about a dream I had, and our blog friend Alex K realized that the image came from Rich’s poem Diving Into the Wreck.