Born on May 16, 1929, in Baltimore, Maryland, Adrienne Rich was brought up in a household she describes as "white and middle-class . . . full of books, with a father who encouraged me to write."

She was schooled at home by her mother, a composer and pianist, until the fourth grade.

In 1951, Rich graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Radcliffe College.

That same year, she published “A Change of World”, her first book of poetry, which the poet W. H. Auden selected for the Yale Younger Poets Award.

She has won numerous awards, fellowships and prizes, including two Guggenheim Fellowships, the Fellowship of the Academy of American Poets, the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, the Fund for Human Dignity Award of the National Gay Task Force, the Lambda Book Award, and the Poets' Prize.