The fool within himself is the object of pity, until he is flattered.

Poet, teacher and writer                          

Selected Works:

Nonfiction:

Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institutio. - 1976
On Lies - Secrets - and Silence: Selected Prose - 1966–1978 - 1979

Blood - Bread - and Poetry: Selected Prose - 1979–1985 - 1986 - Includes the noted essay: Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence

What Is Found There: Notebooks on Poetry and Politics - 1993
Arts of the Possible: Essays and Conversations - 2001
Poetry and Commitment: An Essay - 2007
A Human Eye: Essays on Art in Society - 1997–2008 - 2009

Poetry Collections:

A Change of World - 1951
The Diamond Cutters - and Other Poems - 1955
Snapshots of a daughter-in-law: Poems - 1954-1962 - 1963
Necessities of life: Poems - 1962-1965 - 1966
Selected Poems - 1967
Leaflets - 1969
The Will to Change: Poems - 1968-1970 - 1971
Diving into the Wreck - 1973
Poems: Selected and New - 1950-1974 - 1975
Twenty-one Love Poems - 1976
The Dream of a Common Language - 1978
A Wild Patience Has Taken Me this Far: Poems - 1978-1981 - reprint 1993
Sources - 1983
The Fact of a Doorframe: Poems Selected and New - 1950-1984
Your Native Land - Your Life: Poems - 1986
Time’s Power: Poems - 1985-1988 - 1989
An Atlas of the Difficult World: Poems - 1988-1991 - 1991
Collected Early Poems - 1950-1970
Dark Fields of the Republic: Poems - 1991-1995
Selected Poems - 1950-1995 - 1996.
Midnight Salvage: Poems - 1995-1998 - 1999
Fox: Poems - 1998-2000 - reprint 2003
The School Among the Ruins: Poems - 2000-2004
Telephone Ringing in the Labyrinth: Poems - 2004–2006.                          

Mother Helen Jone
Father Arnold Rich, Adrienne being the elder of two children.
Husband Alfred Haskell Conrad, three sons.
                          

Selected Awards and Honors:

Yale Younger Poets Award - 1950 - A Change of World.
Guggenheim Fellowship - 1952
National Institute of Arts and Letters Award - 1960 
Shelley Memorial Award - 1970
National Book Award for Poetry - 1974 - Diving into the Wreck
Inaugural Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize - 1986
Honorary doctorate from Harvard University - 1989
National Poetry Association Award for Distinguished Service to the Art of Poetry - 1989
William Whitehead Award for Lifetime Achievement for Gay or Lesbian writing - 1990
Common Wealth Award of Distinguished Service - 1991
Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize - 1992
Poets' Prize - 1992 - for Atlas of the Difficult World
Frost Medal - 1992 
Academy of American Poets Fellowship - 1992
MacArthur Fellowship - 1994
Wallace Stevens Award - 1996
Lifetime Achievement Award - Lannan Foundation - 1999
Lifetime Recognition Award from the Griffin Poetry Prize - 2010

Refused the National Medal of Arts - 1997.                          

Came out as Gay in 1976.