Editing Adrienne Rich (section)

==Early life and education==

Adrienne Cecile Rich was born in [[Baltimore]], Maryland, on May 16, 1929,<ref name="nytobit"/> the elder of two sisters. Her father, pathologist [[Arnold Rice Rich]], was the chairman of [[pathology]] at [[Johns Hopkins Medical School|The Johns Hopkins Medical School]]. Her mother, Helen Elizabeth (Jones) Rich,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/rich-adrienne-cecile |title=Adrienne Cecile Rich |publisher=Jewish Women's Archive |access-date=March 29, 2012}}</ref> was a concert pianist and a composer. Her father was from a Jewish family,<ref>{{cite book|last=Langdell|first=Cheri Colby|title=Adrienne Rich: the moment of change|year=2004|publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group, Incorporated|isbn=978-0-313-31605-0|page=20}}</ref>  and her mother was a Southern Protestant;<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QyvXLgnTNpIC&q=%22around+that+time%22+Adrienne+Rich&pg=PA274 |title=A to Z of American women writers – Carol Kort |date=October 30, 2007|isbn=9781438107936|last1=Kort |first1=Carol |publisher=Infobase }}</ref> the girls were raised as Christians. Her paternal grandfather Samuel Rice was an [[Ashkenazi Jews|Ashkenazi]] immigrant from [[Košice]] in the Austro-Hungarian Empire (present day [[History of the Jews in Slovakia|Slovakia]]), while his mother was a [[Sephardi Jews|Sephardic Jew]] from [[Vicksburg, Mississippi]]. Samuel Rice owned a successful shoe store in Birmingham.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://blogs.baruch.cuny.edu/eng2100fall19/files/2019/11/rich-split-at-the-root.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220616044445/https://blogs.baruch.cuny.edu/eng2100fall19/files/2019/11/rich-split-at-the-root.pdf |archive-date=2022-06-16 |url-status=live |title=Split at the Root: An Essay on Jewish Identity |publisher=[[Baruch College]] |accessdate=March 26, 2022}}</ref> 

Adrienne Rich's early poetic influence stemmed from her father, who encouraged her to read but also to write poetry. Her interest in literature was sparked within her father's library, where she read the work of writers such as [[Ibsen]],<ref Name="Shuman1278">Shuman (2002)  p1278</ref> [[Matthew Arnold|Arnold]], [[William Blake|Blake]], [[John Keats|Keats]], [[Dante Gabriel Rossetti]], and [[Alfred, Lord Tennyson|Tennyson]]. Her father was ambitious for Adrienne and "planned to create a prodigy". Adrienne Rich and her younger sister were home schooled by their mother until Adrienne commenced public education in the fourth grade. The poems ''Sources'' and ''After Dark'' document her relationship with her father, describing how she worked hard to fulfill her parents' ambitions—moving into a world in which excellence was expected.<ref Name="Shuman1278"/><ref>''Critical Survey of Poetry'' (1992) Ed. Frank Northen Magill, Salem Press, p. 2752</ref>

In later years, Rich went to [[Roland Park Country School]], which she described as a "good old fashioned girls' school [that] gave us fine role models of single women who were intellectually impassioned."<ref Name="Martin">Martin, Wendy (1984), ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=bzml68WjzmcC&pg=PA174 An American triptych: Anne Bradstreet, Emily Dickinson, Adrienne Rich]'', The University of North Carolina Press, p. 174; {{ISBN|0-8078-4112-9}}.</ref> After graduating from high school, Rich earned her diploma at [[Radcliffe College]] of [[Harvard University]], where she focused on poetry and learning the writing craft, encountering no women teachers at all.<ref Name="Martin"/> 

In 1951, her senior year at college, Rich's first collection of poetry, ''A Change of World'', was chosen by the poet [[W. H. Auden]] for the [[Yale Series of Younger Poets Award]]. He went on to write the introduction to the published volume. Following graduation, Rich received a [[John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation|Guggenheim Fellowship]] to study at Oxford for a year. After visiting [[Florence]], she chose not to return to Oxford, and spent her remaining time in Europe writing and exploring Italy.<ref Name="Pioneer"/>