Image: The cover of the book is a white background with "the power of Adrienne Rich" ,in large black letters across the top. Below that in red is "a biography" and I'm black "Hilary Holaday."Below that is a black and white photo of Rich, wearing a black long sleeve shirt, a short haircut, and holding her hand to her chin held in a light fist while looking directly into the camera.
I initially sought out Hilary Holladay's The Power of Adrienne Rich due to my knowledge of her as a feminist during and after the second wave movements. I had been exposed to her quotes and writings sparsely throughout my life, but having been born in the early '80s, many of these things came to my awareness long after they had occurred. The retelling of history tends to change it over time. I've written before about how mischaracterizations of certain radical feminists caused me to have a prejudiced idea of who they were and miss out on their wisdom (or just the complexity of their flaws.) I had not heard too many messy things about Adrienne Rich, but she still got the same mischaracterization of many lesbian feminists of the time- of being a man hating, sex hating, creature of some sort. I find myself more and more wanting to read about things through the lens of the time period where they took place. Now that I've read this book, I've come to see Adrienne Rich as another historical feminist that was open to expanding her viewpoint outside of the limits of a specific wave. Though I still feel that important pieces are missing.
I find it difficult to review biography and memoir as it feels like reviewing someone's actual life. I will do my best here to review the book itself. I have never been much of a poetry person, so I knew this was a slightly odd choice for me as a biography about a poet is obviously going to include a lot about poetry. In terms of personal taste, I do admit that I felt bored at times reading parts of the book that focuses on her upbringing and early life as a well respected poet. It took about 12 chapters before I reached anything about her feminism and it wasn't until the last couple of chapters of the book that we got down to her activism, belief systems, and so on in the sort of detailed way that I was hoping for. I don't think that my personal taste should reflect on the book or biographer's skill in that regard.
You can tell that this book was a labor of love for the author who is a biographer and poetry scholar. She clearly did an immense amount of research on every aspect of Rich's life that she could get her hands on. I think that this often worked in the book's favor, but also could hurt it at times. I know that, when speaking about someone's life, relationships are going to be a huge part of that. I also know that in poetry and any sort of writing, review processes and public criticism can be issues. (I say, uncomfortably, as I write my own review.) However, I felt disappointed at times that this book focused so much on relationships to the point that the smallest disagreements or shifts were given more space that I'd have rather seen dedicated to other topics. The extensive detail of every review and reaction to them also seemed to be a bit much.
If relationships and wider criticism were to encompass more, I think a better picture of Rich and those around her could have been achieved. For instance, there are multiple mentions of Rich being friends with and a supporter of Janice Raymond, one of the most virulently anti-trans second wave feminists. Raymond claims to have been counseled by Rich while writing her paranoid rantings about the dangers of trans women. I would have liked if we learned about Raymond's flaws in terms of ideology and how Rich's own beliefs fit into that, rather than about petty disagreements or falling outs that are inevitable in anyone's life. We learn about Audre Lorde's many unreciprocated sexual advances that could have been better spent on a larger examination of Lorde and Rich's growth as feminists. This was covered somewhat, but was so interesting that I wanted more.
Rich grew up in a privileged household with a patriarchal, overbearing father who's internalized anti-semitism affected her greatly. Her mother had bipolar disorder and struggles with stability. The combination of these two things led to Rich being psychologically and emotionally neglected even with a financially privileged upbringing. She was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis in her early 20s as well which added great challenges throughout her entire life. Very young, she noticed that among the poetry she had access to, only male poets were writing about women and Rich wanted to correct that. It would be a long time before Rich found her way to feminism, but the foundation was there from a very young age. She likely had access to educational opportunities and, even in a very male-dominated world, her poetry was appreciated early on garnering her awards and positions rarely achieved by women. Rich later came to see worry that some of this was tokenism, but she was still legitimately appreciated by many people and institutions.
Holladay describes riches evolution aptly when she says that, "creating versions of herself that she could love and respect would be one of the great errands of (Rich's) lifetime."
Like many women of the time, lesbianism wasn't even on Rich's radar as a possibility. She had multiple relationships with men, some better than others, and one ending in massive tragedy that affected her for the rest of her life. Her relationship to motherhood was also complicated, falling into the role due to societal expectations and finding herself going against those expectations later in life. I felt like information was missing here and I didn't quite understand how her split from her husband and children at the time worked. But she remained close with her children.
Rich's Jewish heritage is also something that she would not claim until later in life, and large part due to her father's internalized anti-semitism, which became glaring when Rich chose to marry Alfred Conrad who was a practicing Jew as well as a civil rights activist. Coming into the identities of jewish, lesbian, and feminist, took place over years and involved a lot of changes in Rich that I found quite admirable.
I often tend to judge myself for not having perfect views or for many mistakes throughout my life, finding myself comparing my own life to others and coming up short. I always find it interesting that pretty much everybody comes up short against inhuman portrayals of heroes, kill yr idols and all that. Rich also had her own myriad of flaws, such as issues with drinking, that placed her in the category of human being instead of distant historical figure. It was interesting to read how she made her way through so many journeys and hardships. It is no easy task to be passionately dedicated to causes and beliefs, while also being open to listening and to change.
Rich went on to be connected to and involved with many well-known feminist poets such as Audre Lorde after becoming radicalized by the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. Holladay states that rich admired Martin Luther King Jr and Frederick Douglass for their ability to use words to convey important messages and fight for change. However, I did not like the way Holladay repeatedly name dropped these two as a comparison for where Rich found herself in her career and/or activism. I found it odd that a book about a lesbian feminist poet wouldn't be using women more as goals and comparative figures. It felt a little bit like name dropping two of the bigger names in abolition and civil rights movements while ignoring the great many Black women who were involved or comparing apples to oranges, even if both are very sweet. Rich had her own evolution regarding the topics of race both through friendships and her longest lesbian relationship which was interracial. Over time she came to learn how whiteness and white supremacy were involved and her feminism and strove to combat that, albeit imperfectly.
The parts I was most interested in regarding Rich's activism and feminism were the best parts of the book in my opinion. Until the last few chapters, activism and feminism would get sentences here and there or others and Rich's life- such as Conrad- would have profiles of their activism described in detail. At the end, we get more into the nitty gritty of the many actions Rich took to support anti-war, civil rights, gay liberation, feminist, and other causes.
I was regularly impressed at how Rich was able to go against the crowd to make statements that were more in line with what she thought was right. When she moved to a neighborhood and community that was supposed to be more of a lesbian utopia, she felt that people were ignoring the greater issues going on around them to focus on infighting instead. This is a common problem with any insular group and one that she sought to resist.
She was also caught up and debates about sex and sexuality that were common among feminists of the time. She criticized things like BDSM, pornography, other sex work, and so on. Interestingly though, she decided to break with the actions of Andrea Dworkin and Catherine and MacKinnon when she signed a letter against their movement to create laws to combat pornography. This history is very complicated, and often misrepresented, and I do not feel that I have enough space in this review to totally explain it. Dworkin and MacKinnon are often characterized as creating a right-wing anti-sex work bill, but it was more complex- a bill that would make it possible to include pornography and sexual harassment laws and open a door for women to be able to take legal action against pornographers due to harm caused against them. Whether or not one agrees with this, it makes a lot more sense through the lens of often misrepresented history in which second wave feminists were trying to combat misogyny and what they saw as (and what sometimes/often was) abuse of women. Adrienne Rich essentially took the more anti-authoritarian response, even if it didn't seem in line with her own beliefs about pornography. It was Joan Nestle who was able to sway Rich to the other side, noting that any law that was created to punish sex work would undoubtedly be used against not only women in these industries, but women who had sexual lives that were in any way outside the norm.
TPoAR includes hundreds of pages full of info about a long life well lived. I chose to place focus on my review on the things that I sought out the book for. There is so much more there, even if I have crystals about how the information was conveyed and organized. Overall this book is an important piece of scholarship on someone who lived in many worlds and touched so many hearts and minds along the way.
This was also posted to my goodreads and Storygraph.
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