Outward: Adrienne Rich's Expanding Solitudes

Ed Pavlić's book "Outward" explores Adrienne Rich's entire career, emphasizing her focus on "between us" relationships and the transformative potential of connections. It examines five types of solitude in Rich's poems and how relationships offer visionary possibilities to confront cruelty and violence. Pavlić highlights Rich's belief in the power of social divisions and capital to inform but not script our identities and relationships.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 232 pages
Publication date: 01 June 2021
Publisher: University of Minnesota Press

Adrienne Rich, a renowned feminist poet and activist, has left an indelible mark on the literary landscape. Her work during the 1970s, particularly notable for its political and social insights, has solidified her iconic status. However, the later half of her career, characterized by distinctive political and social visions, remains somewhat underappreciated. In his book "Outward," poet, scholar, and novelist Ed Pavlić delves into the entirety of Rich's oeuvre, highlighting her profound emphasis on the interplay between "within us" and "between us." Pavlić guides us through Rich's most radical work, which portrays our lives, from public to intimate, in shared spaces rather than private enclosures.

Drawing from his friendship with Rich and their correspondence, "Outward" explores how Rich's poems offer visionary possibilities to confront cruelty and violence in our world. Pavlić employs an innovative framework to examine five forms of solitude reflected in Rich's poems: relational solitude, social solitude, fugitive solitude, dissident solitude, and radical solitude. He traces the significance of relationships in Rich's early writing, leading us to her explicitly antiracist and anticapitalist work in the 1980s, culminating in her extensive sequence, "An Atlas of the Difficult World."

In conclusion, "Outward" is a masterful engagement that showcases the development of a significant feminist thinker in successive phases. Pavlić's work within the poems of Rich reveals her intimate and erotically charged exploration of relationships, challenging historical divisions based on region, race, class, gender, and sexuality. This insightful book offers a fresh perspective on the legacy of Adrienne Rich, shedding light on her profound contributions to literature and society.

Dimension: 216 x 140 x 25 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781517910785