Good Journey, Adrienne Rich

Adrienne Rich died Tuesday, March 27, at the age of 82.  There is so much to say about her, i don't know how to begin; luckily, many others are writing, and memorials of her will be easy to find.  she was so large in the women's movement, the space she leaves is endless.  i doubt there was a feminist in the country who wasn't influenced, changed, encouraged and en-couraged, by her in the '70s, '80s, '90s.  some of today's  young feminists may not have heard of her; but if you're a feminist in america, you've been influenced by her.  she was that brilliant, original, honest.

  i met her only once, in the early 1970s: i must have been interviewing her, because she had invited me to her apartment for lunch.  she knew, and praised, my work, as i know she did, sincerely, with many other young activists. she heated up some soup she'd made the night before, and i was like a star-struck kid. adrienne rich gave me soup! that she had made!   i think she was genuinely  unimpressed with her own fame, though gratified by the fact that people were affected by her work. poet, speaker, theorist, seeker.  if you've never read her poetry,  or her book 'of woman born,'  do.  her work is grounded in the realities of women's lives in the mid-20th century, but it is also timeless.  what else can i say?  read her. mourn her. be grateful she inhabited the earth for 82 years.