SOURCE: "Contradictions: Tracking Adrienne Rich's Poetry," in Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature, Vol. 12, No. 2, Fall, 1993, pp. 333-40.

In the following essay, Templeton provides an overview of the major trends and themes of criticism in Rich's poetry.

Adrienne Rich's poetry has always raised important, difficult questions about the cultural uses of poetry and the ideology of poetic and critical tradition. For over forty years her work has provided the occasion for critics to comment on the art of poetry, its political significance, the character of poetic tradition, and the value of poetry as a critical and creative cultural activity. Ranging in tone from eulogistic to condemnatory, prescriptive to paternal, these critical statements comprise a narrative that divulges part of the use to which Rich's poetry has been put; and like an exemplary exercise in dialogical discourse, the narrative implied by Rich criticism contains contradictory claims whose meanings modulate as...