[Rarebooks] FS: Adrienne Rich INSCRIBED to Robert Lowell

[Charles Agvent]

RICH, Adrienne [LOWELL, Robert]. LEAFLETS. POEMS 1965-1968. New York: W. 
W. Norton & Company, (1969). First Edition. INSCRIBED and SIGNED by the 
author on the front endpaper to Robert Lowell, Elizabeth Hardwick, and 
their only child Harriet: "For Elizabeth + Cal + Harriet-/with always 
more love-/Adrienne." Lowell appropriated the book, and the margins are 
filled with his ticks and slashes and a few words, especially in the 
section "Ghazals, Homage to Ghalib," a series of meditations on 
contemporary life modeled on Ghalib; the similarity to the poems Lowell 
was then working on for NOTEBOOKS and HISTORY is remarkable as is the 
association value of this copy. Three years later Lowell would publish 
THE DOLPHIN which Rich called “a cruel and shallow book" and “one of the 
most vindictive and mean-spirited acts in the history of poetry.” 
Writing in AMERICAN POETRY REVIEW, she said: “what does one say about a 
poet who, having left his wife and daughter for another marriage, then 
titles a book with their names [FOR LIZZIE AND HARRIET] and goes on to 
appropriate his ex-wife’s letters written under the stress and pain of 
desertion, into a book of poems nominally addressed to the new wife?” 
Near Fine in a Very Good dustwrapper.

Rich had become friends with Lowell and Hardwick in the late 1950s. 
Lowell's important book, LIFE STUDIES, had a great influence on her 
writing, as it did on many poets. Lowell had favorably reviewed her 
previous book, NECESSITIES OF LIFE (1966), and offered her much 
encouragement, but their relationship soured not long after she 
inscribed this book, and she became one of his fiercest critics. 
(#015303)        $1,000

https://www.charlesagvent.com/pages/books/015303/adrienne-rich-robert-lowell/leaflets-poems-1965-1968

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