Adrienne Rich (1929–2012)

Adrienne Rich is probably the poet who has spoken most deeply to me since I “discovered” her in the early ‘90s. Her language, her topics feel so much like home to me. I also have many of her later books, but not the early books that comprise this collection, and it was wonderful to see her growth as a poet in these early works. My favorite poem in this collection is "I Dream of the Death of Orpheus." Favorite lines from it:
"I am a woman in the prime of life, with certain powers
and those powers are severely limited
by authorities whose faces I rarely see.
I am a woman in the prime of life
driving her dead poet in a black Rolls Royce
through a landscape of twilight and thorns."… (meer)

Not really a poetry lover but some I can read and actually enjoy. Adrienne's poetry is accessible.
Sixty years of poems from pioneering writer, activist, and intellectual Adrienne Rich―“the Blake of American letters” (Nadine Gordimer). Adrienne Rich was the singular voice of her generation, bringing discussions of gender, race, and class to the forefront of poetical discourse. This generous selection from all nineteen of Rich’s published poetry volumes encompasses her best-known work―the clear-sighted and passionate feminist poems of the 1970s, including “Diving into the Wreck,” “Planetarium,” and “The Phenomenology of Anger”―and offers the full range of her evolution as a poet. From poems leading up to her feminist breakthrough through bold later work such as “North American Time” and “Calle Visión,” Selected Poems celebrates Rich’s prophetic vision as well as the inventiveness that shaped her enduring art.… (meer)