University of Banja Luka

Faculty of Philology
Department of English Language and Literature
Master Studies

THE PROBLEM OF SOCIAL MARGINALIZATION IN

THE POETRY OF RITA DOVE AND ADRIENNE RICH

Mentor: Petar Penda, PhD Student: Saša Leper, 130/2017

Contents
INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................................................... 3
ADRIENNE RICH ............................................................................................................................... 4
RITA DOVE ........................................................................................................................................ 5
POWER ............................................................................................................................................ 5
ADOLESCENCE ............................................................................................................................. 6
A BALL IS FOR THROWING........................................................................................................ 7
DIVING INTO THE WRECK ......................................................................................................... 8
ROSA ............................................................................................................................................... 9
FRAME ............................................................................................................................................ 9
PARSLEY ...................................................................................................................................... 10
CONCLUSION .................................................................................................................................. 12
BIBLIOGRAPHY .................................................................................................................................. 14

2
 The Problem of Social Marginalization in the poetry of Rita Dove and
Adrienne Rich

INTRODUCTION

Imagine being deprived of employment or education solely on the basis of your skin
tone. Imagine being shunned, overlooked or directly abused entirely due to your sexual
orientation. Imagine being considered a second-rate not only citizen but even human being
exclusively because you were born, say, a woman. Too many people do not need to imagine it.
Too many people are suffering through this every day.

As defined by the Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, “Marginalization comprises

those processes by which individuals and groups are ignored or relegated to the sidelines of
political debate, social negotiation, and economic bargaining—and kept there. “1 The grounds
for that shunning can be various, but, historically, it has mainly been centered on gender, race,
religion, sexuality, age, social status (class) or any combination thereof. Marginalization can
vary from exclusion from various social groups, through imposed political passivity and
absence of representation, to lack of education and employment, thus directly endangering the
most basic human rights. The damage practices of marginalization inflict both upon the
directly affected individual as well as the entire society is multifold.

Naturally, there are different ways to counter this, least of all not being drawing
awareness to the problem itself. Largely significant have been works of socially active artists
who aim to raise tolerance levels and reach social justice and equality. With this in mind, the
focus of this paper will be on some of the works of Adrienne Rich and Rita Dove; the ways in
which they have put their voices in the service of the unvoiced - predominantly women and
African Americans, who continue to be neglected, oppressed, or even openly harassed.
However, this problem unfortunately greatly overpasses any political or cultural boarders and
involves far greater amount of people than any one nation alone.

1. Michael Hanagan, “Marginalization,“ Encyclopedia.com, Accessed February 5, 2018

http://www.encyclopedia.com/social-sciences-and-law/sociology-and-social-reform/sociology-general-terms-
and-concepts-109

3
ADRIENNE RICH

Through her involvement in social justice movements as well as her literary works,
Adrienne Rich fought for female and lesbian rights, representation and social treatment.
Trying to raise awareness of discrimination and inequality inflicted upon these groups, she
was one of the pioneer advocates against social marginalization. It was as early as her 1963
collection “Snapshots of a Daughter-in-Law” that the USA received one of its, as Schudel
calls it, “first literary nods to feminism”2 and Rich’s poem “Diving Into the Wreck”, published
in 1973, remains one of the most outstanding and influential feminist poems to this day.

Moreover, of great importance is also the acceptance speech for the 1974 National Art
Medal, in which Adrienne Rich, together with Alice Walker and Audre Lorde, her fellow
poets and activists, remarked that they, in their own words, ”…dedicate this occasion to the
struggle for self-determination of all women, of every color, identification, or derived class“3,
impressively showing a united front and a struggle for a common cause. However, an action
which speaks even more loudly of Rich’s genuine position regarding the matter was her 1997
refusal of National Medal for the Arts. The letter she sent to the Clinton administration and the
chair of the National Endowment for the Arts arguably remains better known and more
influential than her poetry itself. In it, Rich openly claimed that ”…(she) believe(s) in art’s
social presence—as breaker of official silences, as voice for those whose voices are disregarded,
and as a human birthright” as well as that ”art means nothing if it simply decorates the dinner
table of the power which holds it hostage“4 5 6
And her highly socially engaged poetry
definitely did nothing of the sorts.

2. Matt Shudel, “Adrienne Rich, feminists poet who wrote of politics and lesbian identity, dies at 82“, The
Washington Post, March 28, 2012
https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/adrienne-rich-feminist-poet-who-wrote-of-politics-and-
lesbian-identity-dies-at-82/2012/03/28/gIQAQygghS_story.html?utm_term=.3a1a2fa5b40b

3. “Adrienne Rich, winner of the 1974 National Book Award for Divining into the Wreck“, National Book
Foundation, National Book Awards Acceptance Speeches, Accessed February 5, 2918.
http://www.nationalbook.org/nbaacceptspeech_arich_74.html#.WlNpGKinGM8

4.“Adrienne Rich (1929-2012): The Life of the Legendary Poet & Activist“, YouTube video, 13:29, posted
by Democracy Now!, March 30, 2012
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJH4Y-ylOzE

5. Shudel, “Winer of the 1974 National Book Award“

6. Shudel, “Adrienne Rich…dies at 82“

4
RITA DOVE

Another name quite important in the social justice and equality circles is that of Rita
Dove, a highly-esteemed Pulitzer-winning poet, who, among numerous other awards, also
served as the US Poet Laureate. Ever since her first literary collection in 1980, “The Yellow
House on the Corner”,7 8
Rita Dove has also been tackling the issues of discrimination and
abuse of women as well as racial discrimination, harassment and crimes against them.

Being an African American woman herself, Dove deals with such problems in a true
Carol Hanish manner of “the personal is political”9. However, her poetry surpasses the scopes
of confessional and has far wider implications than her own personal biography would
express, thus making it widely politically and socially relevant.

Passionate about similar matters, despite sometimes having different focuses, the
poetics of Rita Dove and Adrienne Rich are often quite similar in that they often give account
of specific events or people which they later transform into universal lessons.

POWER
The example of this approach is evident from Rich’s use of singular women and their
life circumstances in order to showcase a much larger idea. Just like she did by further
immortalizing Caroline Herschel in “Planetarium”10, in her 1978 poem “Power”11, Adrienne
Rich uses Marie Curie to problematize female lack of power, opportunity and recognition, as
well as the hardships they need to endure should they desire it. As Mary J. Carruthers noted,

7. “Rita Dove.“ Poetry Foundation, Accessed February 7, 2018.

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/rita-dove

8.“A Brief Biography.“ The Rita Dove HomePage, University of Virginia, Accessed February 7, 2018.
http://people.virginia.edu/~rfd4b/

9. Carol Harnisch, “The Personal is Political: The Women’s Liberation Movement classic with a new
explanatory introduction”, Carol Harnish, Published in January 2006.
http://www.carolhanisch.org/CHwritings/PIP.html

10. Adrienne Rich, “Planetarium”, Poetry Foundation. Accessed February 3, 2018

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46568/planetarium-56d2267df376c

11. Adriene Rich, “Power” in Eight Contemporary American Poets, ed. Nikola Vukolić, sel. and tran.
Petar Penda (Banja Luka – Beograd: Foundation Petar Kočić, 2008), 56, PDF

5
Marie Curie here serves ”as a moral exemplum of woman under patriarchy, fragmented and
cut off from the sources of her own power yet grasping towards it.“12

Rich does so on two levels: the literal and the metaphorical one. The first level is
plainly obvious in the description of dying but unwavering Marie Curie holding her uranium-
filled test tube in her decomposing fingers and ultimately sacrificing her life for science. But
the same poem can also be read in far more universal terms and Marie Curie could be
translated to any woman with a grip of power, or knowledge, or prospect.

The “earth-deposits of our history” can equally stand for excavation sites of Curie’s
uranium and for all the neglect and palliation women have been undergoing all throughout
history, being strapped of opportunities, credits and voices. Moreover, the line “her body
bombarded for years by the element / she had purified” can either literally mean the
uranium as a topic of Curie’s scientific study, or the abuse women suffer from the same men
they once physically gave birth to and raised, formed and thus purified. In quite a similar
manner, just as uranium is giving Curie the power but is also making her blind, so are women
not being allowed to see properly by men, while themselves are denying the cause.

Finally, Curie knew there was a price to be paid for reaching for that power and she did
it, ignoring the fatal wounds. She is contrasted here with all those women for whom that
source never grows to produce power, but only pain and suffering. The last lines, “denying/
her wounds came from the same source as her power” serve as a focus of the entire
poem and show that she decided to become a complete Somebody rather than a Mrs.
Anybody, mother of Someone, knowing that which will be her strength, ignoring that that
which will be her lethal weakness, while denying they are the same.

ADOLESCENCE
Similarly, despite the fact that the protagonist of the “Adolescence”13 herself remains
unnamed, Rita Dove follows the same principle of turning a personal, individual story and
expanding its scopes to the universal.

12. Mary J. Carruthers, “On Power”, Modern American Poetry, University of Illinois, Accessed February
6, 2018
http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/m_r/rich/power.htm
13. Rita Dove, “Adolescence” in Eight Contemporary American Poets, ed. Nikola Vukolić, sel. and tran.
Petar Penda (Banja Luka – Beograd: Foundation Petar Kočić, 2008), 206-10, PDF

6
 The story of a little girl hiding behind her grandmother’s porch with her sisters,
innocent and curious, quickly becomes gloomy and horrifying in part two through strong hints
of abuse and violence; finally leaving her in part three to wait for that rescuer who never
comes, as the darkness of the night from the part one comes to hint the darkness of her later
circumstances. Unfortunately, the abuse and imprisonment depicted is a reality for far more
girls than Dove’s poetic subject, and this is that aforementioned universality of Dove’s
poetics.

A BALL IS FOR THROWING

Continuing with the topic of female position, one of Rich’s poems, “A Ball is for
Throwing”14, addresses the lack of use of female potential. In it, women are compared to balls
which are merely tucked away some place safe. Readjusting Henrik Ibsen’s 1878 idea of a
doll house15, Rich’s women are also shelved there, in a place where “nothing was ever
broken” and no peace nor order disturbed. On the other hand, that never get to show their
colors or purpose, but remain only in the domain of “what that ball could be”.

The emotional high of the poem lies in the third stanza, in which the ball is allowed to
shine only in that brief moment between being thrown by one hand and caught by another,
unquestionably alluding to that moment of a bride being handed over from her father to her
imminent husband-to-be, in which she does not belong to anyone but is her own. Subtly
referring to that freedom, Rich directly says not once but twice that it does not exist, yet is
“everything we desire”. That freedom of recognition, of utility and, through it, power is
described as “Beautiful in the mind / Like a word we are waiting to hear” but which is
ultimately never uttered. Finally, the poet’s personal attitude as well as the entire message of
this poem is right there in the title – “A Ball Is for Throwing”.

14. Adrienne Rich, “A Ball Is for Throwing”, Poetry Foundation, Accessed February 7, 2018
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/browse?contentId=27402

15. Henrik Ibsen, “A Doll’s House, Play in Three Acts” (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1889), PDF
https://www2.hf.uio.no/polyglotta/public/media/libraries/file/10/A%20Dolls%20House-
%20Henrik%20Ibsen.pdf

7
DIVING INTO THE WRECK
However, Rich’s best-known feminist poem by far is “Diving into the Wreck”16. In it,
Rich criticizes the lack of women included in that “book of myths” that is history, and is
determined to emerge into the vast ocean that is knowledge, recognition, opportunity, and
power, and get the first-hand experience of that which she came to get: “the wreck and not the
story of the wreck / the thing itself and not the myth”.

She begins the poem by saying that despite being alone, she knows what she came to
do and the mask of her motivation as the driving force is powerful. Rich acknowledges that
the opportunity itself, the ladder, has always been there for those willing to use it, but also
notes the difficulty of the task and the unfavorable odds for those who venture to go on the
journey.

Moreover, the hardships do not end by merely reaching the goal, diving into the sea,
but also lie in remaining focused on the purpose once the destination is reached – empowering
other women to find their voices and admission into the club once she herself has gained
access “among so many who have always / lived here”. In the manner of the Biblical saying,
“the truth will set you free”17, Rich dives for the truth in an attempt to enter female names into
“the book of myths” and crack open the door of possibility for them. In the words of Margaret
Atwood, “The truth, it seems, is not just what you find when you open a door: it is itself a
door, which the poet is always on the verge of going through.“18

However, Rich is aware that there is a lot of damage done but also that there are “the
treasures that prevail”, emphasizing the value of the dive, of the effort and the struggle for a
cause so great that even when a battle is lost and the soldiers defeated it is far from being over,
“the drowned face always staring / toward the sun” and someone new diving back to witness
the endeavor. Nonetheless, the end of the poem reminds us that there is still much to be done
and that “the book of myths” still does not contain all the truth it should, that the struggle is

16. Adriene Rich, “Diving Into the Wreck” in Eight Contemporary American Poets, ed. Nikola Vukolić,
sel. and tran. Petar Penda (Banja Luka – Beograd: Foundation Petar Kočić, 2008), 64-70, PDF

17. John, “The Holy Bible”, Bible Gateway, Accessed February 10, 2018. 8:31-32
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+8%3A31-32&version=ESV

18. Margaret Atwood, “Diving Into the Wreck: Poems 1971-1972 by Adrienne Rich”. New York Times
(1857 – Current file), December 30, 1973, ProQuest Historical Newspapers The New York Times (1851 - 2002)
p. 161., Accessed February 8, 2018.
http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/books/nba-Rich.pdf

8
ongoing and the ladder still there “hanging innocently” to be used by those who “know what is
it for”

ROSA
On the other hand, a large portion of Rita Dove’s work is dedicated to one such woman
who certainly entered her name into that “book of myths”19 and, by taking a stand, triggered
wide social change. Dove’s 1999 collection of poetry is called “On the Bus with Rosa Parks”
and her poem “Rosa”20 she depicts the famous bus scene when, through her insubordination
to unjust laws, Rosa Parks subsequently improved the lives of so many people of color.

However, the poem itself does not retell the scene but rather comments it from a third-
person observer perspective. Ending on quite a sarcastic remark of “That courtesy.”, Dove
shares her attitude towards the event and thus invites her readers to also admire the act of one
valiant woman and maybe even be inspired to take actions themselves. “Rosa” is yet another
example of Dove’s ability to utilize individual cases for universal purposes and make her
readers greatly emotional without openly expressing emotions herself.

FRAME
Similarly, in addition to speaking against the general maltreatment of women and
white women standing up for people of color, Adrienne Rich also broke conventions of the
time by not only fighting against racism, but also making her female poetic subjects take an
active stand in that fight.

In her 1980 poem “Frame”21 22

, through the words of a white female witness, Rich
presents an incident which occurred at the University of Boston in 197923 when a female

19. Rich, “Diving Into the Wreck”, 64-70

20. Rita Dove, “Rosa”, in Eight Contemporary American Poets, ed. Nikola Vukolić, sel. and tran. Petar
Penda (Banja Luka – Beograd: Foundation Petar Kočić, 2008), 218, PDF

21. Adriene Rich, “Frame”, in Eight Contemporary American Poets, ed. Nikola Vukolić, sel. and tran. Petar
Penda (Banja Luka – Beograd: Foundation Petar Kočić, 2008), 76-80, PDF

22. J. S. Jacobs, “A former acolyte remembers Adrienne Rich”, Even Josh Knows, March 29, 2012.
http://jsjacobs.scripts.mit.edu/evenjoshknows/2012/03/a-former-acolyte-remembers-adrienne-rich/

23. Joshua Jacobs, “Witness: #BlackLivesMatter, Claudia Rankine, and Adrienne Rich”, The Critical
Flame: A Journal of Literature and Culture, 35, March-April 2015. Accessed February 8, 2018

9
African American student was brutally assaulted by a white police officer for trespassing a
building while waiting for a bus on a cold snowy evening.

Through its dual use of the first and the third person, the poem introduces several
disturbing racial issues – the student’s sense of invisibility and questioning will that ever
change; the contrast of race between the student on one hand, and the men and the witness on
the other; the silence prevailing through the entire incident, both in terms of the lack of noise
the witness hears and her obliged muteness; and the marginalization and alienation evident
from the mere title itself.

Firstly, the narrator, a white woman, emphasizes her position of a spectator out of the
frame of the whole tragic scene, invisible but herself seeing, silenced but deciding to speak up.
She goes on to repeat that she should not have been there, yet she observes the student in great
detail. On the other hand, she refers to men simply as “anonymous” and “white”, generalizing
them while clearly emitting no sense of alienation from the sufferer and thus breaking social
conventions of the time.

A very dominant poetic means is reiterating the phrase “in silence” as many as
fourteen times, which, combined with mentions that “there is no soundtrack / to go with this”
and the quickened pace of the second part of the poem omnisciently depicting the aftermath of
the arrest and the physical abuse, presents a mute movie-like grotesque stomach-turning scene.
The last lines show no conclusion and the fate of the girl remains unknown, releasing it to the
audience’s hopes and fears. However, as usual, the most ominous angle of this poem by far is
its universality, warning that, while this one is based on a true event, it might not be an
insolate case but a common practice ruining the lives of many more people.

PARSLEY
However, in addition to making personal matters universal, poetry also has the power
to translate historical events which affected innumerable unknown people into personal
experiences and thus make them more relatable, memorable and educational.

In her 1983 “Parsley”24, Rita Dove commemorates a historical event which happened
in 1937 when 20 000 black Haitian cane workers were killed seemingly for being unable to

http://criticalflame.org/witness-blacklivesmatter-claudia-rankine-and-adrienne-rich/
24. Rita Dove, “Parsley”, in Eight Contemporary American Poets, ed. Nikola Vukolić, sel. and tran. Petar
Penda (Banja Luka – Beograd: Foundation Petar Kočić, 2008), 212, PDF

10
pronounce the letter “r” in the Spanish words for parsley -“perejil”25. In part one, "The Cane
Fields", Dove uses the collective we as a narration point, and hence makes the readers even
more involved and sympathetic to the sufferers, immersed in the collective confusion of the
situation so horrible that it seems unreal. Special mood of the poem is set through the author’s
choice to repeat and thus place enormous importance on the key elements26, i.e. the color
green, “a parrot imitating spring” and the phrase “the cane appears”. This moves the poem
away from the confessional or even emotional per se, and gives it a more neutral tone, highly
contrasted with the topic itself but that more effective.

The emotional high point lies in the image of children who “gnaw their teeth to
arrowheads” and the opposition of innocence and gentility, on one hand, and the brutality in
all its pointlessness, on the other, giving it a dream-like quality. The parrot imitating spring,
time when everything should be blooming and growing and becoming happier, here adds a
strong sarcastic note of irony, as strong contrast in terms of mood and emotion as the one
between the colors red and green. The sense of irony further extends to the image of dreams -
but unlike bright, happy dreams which provide comfort and safety, here a cane appears out of
a swamp, there is a flash of shining teeth in a smile of a murderer, and streams and wind, and a
parrot out of time and place, and a rain of blood. And the dream is no dream at all.

In comparison to the "The Cane Fields", the second part of the poem, titled “Palace”27
has one enormous difference: the focus of “Palace” is not on the event itself but the person
behind it. Here, el General is made more human, more emotional and even more relatable. The
mention of his mother, especially the way he misses her after her death and wanders through
her empty room, paints him more as a scared lonely child than a brutal tyrant committing a
massacre. However, the poem is still narrated in the third person, with distance being
maintained from him.

Moreover, many of the motifs occurring in the “Parsley” are encountered here as well,
though in a somewhat different form. It is evident that the parrot was his mother’s pet and
reminds him of happier days, thus extending the irony of its role. Moreover, the facts that he

25. Rita Dove, “Poems and their Backstories” YouTube video, 15:44, a panel on a conference held in
Chattanooga, Tennessee, on April 18, 2015 posted by Forsicht, February 8, 2018
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ugqgx1NXMPE

26. ibid

27. Rita Dove, “Palace”, in Eight Contemporary American Poets, ed. Nikola Vukolić, sel. and tran. Petar
Penda (Banja Luka – Beograd: Foundation Petar Kočić, 2008), 214-17, PDF

11
planted his mother's walking cane, showing he is able to treasure and even somehow create
life, and that he too sees the rain and the stream lashing over the sugar cane fields, connecting
him with his victims and their shared sky, deepen his character and give it another dimension.

The teeth of the children from the part one are now replaced by teeth of his mother,
again hinting at the innocence and purity contrasted to the brutality of arrows. However, that
brutality is emphasized in the comparison of Haitians not only to his mother but also the
parrot, making the people inferior of the two sides and thus more expendable, justifying
killing so many of them over a matter as trivial as “a single, beautiful word”. Unlike some of
the previously mentioned poems, "Parsley" demonstrates a power one man can have, at one of
its worst examples.

CONCLUSION

As fragmented this world is in terms of nations and political boarders, it is paradoxally even
more fragmented in opinions and worldviews, and yet, simultaneously, somehow united in its
struggles. Problems of marginalization, of shunning and exclusion, both morally and ethically
as well as practically, are much bigger than any one separate story, be it as small as individual
or as broad as national. Given the magnitude of these harmful practices and their huge effects,
it is only natural that the means of combat would be equally wide and borderless.

One perfect example of that is through the means of socially engaged art, since it knows no
limits and has the unique power to personally express universality and vice versa, while it
inspires more advocates and educates more witnesses. In the words of Rita Dove herself,
“doing nothing was the doing”28, meaning that sometimes it is enough to take notice, to learn
both about ourselves and others, to raise awareness, to witness and embolden others to act,
which is exactly what great poetry does. As Dove puts it,

“The power of poetry is that everybody experiences it differently. There are no rules for
what makes a great poem. Understanding it is not just about metaphor or meter.
Instead, a great poem is one that resonates with us, that challenges us and that teaches
us something about ourselves and the world that we live in.“

28. Rita Dove, “Rosa”, 218

12
 Naming notable women in history and educating people that there have been quite
many female contributions to the general improvement of humanity is one of the most
significant ways of combating marginalization and ignorance regarding women because it
invites further efforts and inspires some new Rosas Park and Maries Curie, while showing that
sometimes it takes as little as one person to make the difference and start the much-needed
change.

Alongside those notable heroes, equally important are the records of survivors or fallen
victims, honoring and exemplifying them for encouragement of everyone potentially in similar
situations, for scolding the existing culprits and warning the potential future ones, for knowing
that those damaged or ended lives had impact far exceeding their personal little universes and
that they have indeed made difference for the better. As Gertrude Reif Hughes notes, Rich
tells not only a history of survivors, “but also of the counterforces against which that passion
somehow prevailed and must continue to prevail.“29 inspiring even more survivors and more
passion.

Perseverance, strength and diligence of Marie Curie, of Caroline Herschel, of Rosa

Parks left the humanity forever in their debt; the woman deciding to dive "into the wreck" and
enter female names into "the book of myths" stands up for all the nameless abused adolescents
who did not have their name entered in there, for all other scientists and artists and
contributors who were silenced and censored, molested and ignored; the white woman who
decided to speak up against racist violence encourages breaking the interracial barrier and
uniting over the cause of humanity and justice and equality; and the twenty thousand
butchered Haitians remind the world of mindless horrors which must never be repeated. These
two different but similar author of the same sex, of different race, remind the rest of the world
that women, regardless of color, must not be shelved as ornaments of men's lives, but must be
allowed to pursue their own purposes and dreams, and that there is no difference in value of
lives on the mere basis of skin color - messages as universal and powerful as their means of
proclamation itself.

29. Gertrude Reif Highes, “On Power”, Modern American Poetry. University of Illinois, Accessed
February 6, 2018
http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/m_r/rich/power.htm

13
 BIBLIOGRAPHY

“A Brief Biography.“ The Rita Dove HomePage. University of Virginia. Accessed February
7, 2018.
http://people.virginia.edu/~rfd4b/

“Adrienne Rich. Recepient of the 2006 Medal For Distinguished Contribution to American
Letters.” National Book Foundation. Accessed February 7, 2018
http://www.nationalbook.org/nbaacceptspeech_arich.html#.WpSqPUxFzjp

“Adrienne Rich (1929-2012): The Life of the Legendary Poet & Activist“. YouTube video.
13:29. Posted by Democracy Now!. March 30, 2012
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJH4Y-ylOzE

“Adrienne Rich, winner of the 1974 National Book Award for Divining into the Wreck“.
National Book Awards Acceptance Speeches. National Book Foundation. Accessed
February 5, 2018.
http://www.nationalbook.org/nbaacceptspeech_arich_74.html#.WlNpGKinGM8

Atwood, Margaret “Diving Into the Wreck: Poems 1971-1972 by Adrienne Rich”. New York
Times (1857 – Current file), December 30, 1973. ProQuest Historical Newspapers The
New York Times (1851 - 2002) pg. 161. Accessed February 8, 2018.
http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/books/nba-Rich.pdf

Carruthers, Mary J. “On Power”. Modern American Poetry. University of Illinois. Accessed
February 6, 2018
http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/m_r/rich/power.htm

Dean, Michelle. “The Wreck: Adrienne Rich’s feminist awakening, glimpsed through her
never-before-published letters.” The New Republic. April 3, 2016
https://newrepublic.com/article/132117/adrienne-richs-feminist-awakening

Dove, Rita “Adolescence” in Eight Contemporary American Poets, ed. Petar Penda (Banja
Luka – Beograd: Foundation Petar Kočić, 2008), 206-10. PDF

14
Dove, Rita “Palace”, in Eight Contemporary American Poets, ed. Nikola Vukolić. Sel. and
tran. Petar Penda (Banja Luka – Beograd: Foundation Petar Kočić, 2008), 214-17. PDF

Dove, Rita “Parsley”, in Eight Contemporary American Poets, ed. Nikola Vukolić. Sel. and
tran. Petar Penda (Banja Luka – Beograd: Foundation Petar Kočić, 2008), 212. PDF

Dove, Rita “Poems and their Backstories” YouTube video, 15:44. A panel on a conference
held in Chattanooga, Tennessee, on April 18, 2015. Posted by Forsicht, February 8, 2018
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ugqgx1NXMPE

Dove, Rita “Rosa”, in “Eight Contemporary American Poets” ed. Nikola Vukolić. Sel. and
tran. Petar Penda (Banja Luka – Beograd: Foundation Petar Kočić, 2008), 218. PDF

Hanagan, Michael. “Marginalization.“ Encyclopedia.com. Accessed February 5, 2018

http://www.encyclopedia.com/social-sciences-and-law/sociology-and-social-
reform/sociology-general-terms-and-concepts-109

Harnisch, Carol. “The Personal is Political: The Women’s Liberation Movement classic with a
new explanatory introduction”, Carol Harnish. Published in January 2006.
http://www.carolhanisch.org/CHwritings/PIP.html

Highes, Gertrude Reif, “On Power”. Modern American Poetry. University of Illinois.
Accessed February 6, 2018
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Ibsen, Henrik “A Doll’s House, Play in Three Acts” (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1889). PDF
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%20Henrik%20Ibsen.pdf

Jacobs, Joshua. “Witness: #BlackLivesMatter, Claudia Rankine, and Adrienne Rich”. The
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Jacobs, J. S. “A former acolyte remembers Adrienne Rich”, Even Josh Knows. March 29,
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Rich, Adriene “Frame”, in Eight Contemporary American Poets, ed. Nikola Vukolić. Sel. and
tran. Petar Penda (Banja Luka – Beograd: Foundation Petar Kočić, 2008), 76-80. PDF

Rich, Adrienne “Planetarium”. Poetry Foundation. Accessed February 3, 2018

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“Rita Dove: about her poem “Parsley”…”. YouTube video, 15:44. A panel “Poems and their
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