Adrienne Rich, October 2001

Author of more than 15 volumes of poetry, including The Dream of a Common Language and Dark Fields of the Republic, and of five books of nonfiction prose, including Of Woman Born and Arts of the Possible, Adrienne Rich delivers language that incites action and provokes deliberation in, as she says, "the voice of the individual speaking not just to herself, or to a beloved friend, but to and from a collective, a social realm."