An Atlas of the Difficult World: Poems, 1988-1991

The heart of Adrienne Rich's award-winning collection beats in its title sequence, 13 poems charting "An Atlas of the Difficult World." Like Atlas, who bears Earth on his shoulders, Rich bears--and wields--an enormous political consciousness. These poems find her struggling to say what is honest and true, resisting easy answers, having the ambition to risk everything; these are the energies for which her readers return. For example, after deriding as solipsistic the poetry of Richard Hugo, she writes: