Adrienne Rich: The Poet and her Critics.

by Craig Werner
Review by: Gertrude Reif Hughes
American Literature, Vol. 61, No. 2 (May, 1989), pp. 321-322
Published by: Duke University Press
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Book Reviews 321
may be due to the period in which she wrote coupled with the fact
that "sexual identity is an almost secret subject of a great many Bishop
poems" (p. I4I) iS a line worth pursuing. Finally, although Parker is
right to insist again that we see the disruptions in what Kalstone called
"the deceptively simple surface of Bishop's work" (David Kalstone,
Five Temperaments [New York: Oxford Univ. Press, I977],
P.
I3), we
still await a full discussion of the way such disruptions empower the
poems.
Reed College. LISA M. STEINMAN.
ADRIENNE RICH: The Poet and Her Critics. By Craig Werner. Chicago:
American Library Assoc. I988. iX, I99 pp. Paper, $I9.95.
The latest volume in a series called The Poet and His [sic!] Critics,
this is the first to be devoted to a woman. The list of previous titles
includes such names as Dylan Thomas, Langston Hughes, Robert
Lowell, but so far no Gwendolyn Brooks, Elizabeth Bishop, or H.D.
Are the poet and her critics well served by Craig Werner's volume
on Adrienne Rich? Yes and no, because the book tries to function
both as a reference work and as literary criticism. It certainly contains
useful information, but its organization makes it repetitive and hard
to use as a reference guide; and Werner's literary critical arguments
lack distinction, though his textual discussions are usually apt and
rewarding.
Each chapter blends biographical information, textual commentary,
and observations about Rich's political and aesthetic orientation. As
a result, a newcomer to Rich's work will be unable to get a con-
cise biographical portrait or a sustained argument about a particular
volume of poetry without having to read thematic discussions more
suitable for seasoned Rich readers. Those readers, however, will find
that Werner's overviews repeat much that they already know thanks
to Wendy Martin's classic "From Patriarchy to the Female Principle"
and Jane Roberta Cooper's collection of essays and reviews, Reading
Adrienne Rich (I984).
Werner provides some six pages of bibliography, but the book
neither functions as a definitive bibliographic guide, nor does it sys-
tematically collect and analyze the reception history of Rich's work to
date. (I think that would have been a particularly interesting project.)
Werner does attend to various debates among Rich's interpreters. For
example, he gives a fair-minded account of Rich's celebrated argu-
ment about separatism with Susan Friedman in Signs, and a judicious
analysis of Margaret Homans' and Rachel Blau DuPlessis' differing
approaches to the question of literal language in Rich's poetry.
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322 American Literature
Moreover, in his second chapter, "Patriarchy and Solipsism: Repres-
sion, Rebellion, Re-Vision" which should perhaps have been his first
since it's much more fundamental than the others-he addresses the
combination of suspicion and dismissal that Rich's woman-centered
work frequently elicits, even today. He argues cogently that in a male-
run world, focusing on women isn't solipsism but self-defense or
self-affirmation (or both).
In his Preface, Werner, who is an Associate Professor of Afro-
American Studies, announces that he's "white, male, heterosexual,"
and that he aspires "to provide a sympathetic response" to Rich's work.
He succeeds, because he respects the fact that her focus on women
represents a deeply considered and, as he points out, re-considered
choice. Textually, Werner uses his appreciation of Rich's principled
concentration on women in such effective comments as this represen-
tative one: "Far from being a poem 'about' male physical violence,
'Rape' is primarily concerned with women's psychological response to
that violence."
Readers will find these pages more valuable for local insights, trib-
utes, and items of information than for sustained argument, analytical
power, or new perceptions. Despite flaws in conceptualization, the
book displays its author's devoted work on a complex, courageous,
and continuingly influential poet.
Wesleyan University.
GERTRUDE REIF HUGHES.
WILLIAM EVERSON: The Life of Brother Antoninus. By Lee Bartlett.
New York: New Directions. I988. 288 pp. $25.95.
This biography of the contemporary California poet William Ever-
son by Lee Bartlett of the University of New Mexico, Everson's bibli-
ographer and editor of his essays and interviews in Earth Poetry, may
be a disappointment to readers coming to the book with greater ex-
pectations than either the imperative need to write a dust-wrapper
blurb praising the poet or the simpler desire to read an introduction
to his work. Even as an introduction, the main avenues (if not the
side streets) of Everson's life are incompletely presented, with the ef-
fect of skewing the judgment of readers unfamiliar with the poet and
frustrating the goodwill of those who already care about his work.
In its lack of focus, this biography does little to sharpen or challenge
the conventional view of Everson as a highly emotional religious and
philosophical poet in the tradition of Robinson Jeffers. Born in Sacra-
mento in 1912, Everson spent his early years in a difficult relationship
with an overbearing father. While a CO confined to a work camp
in Oregon during World War II, he learned to operate a hand press,
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