Living in Sin

In 1955, when The Diamond Cutters was released, Rich had been married for two years, stating, according to a Guardian article, “I married in part because I knew no better way to disconnect from my first family. I wanted what I saw as a full woman’s life, whatever possible.” Also in 1955, Rich gave birth to the first of her three sons. At the time of writing poems for this collection, Rich was in traditional-woman mode, as depicted in “Living in Sin,” feeling the pressure to produce another volume of work of which she was not ultimately satisfied. She describes the collection as full of travel poems, inspired by her time in Europe, and worries about getting older, the latter of which is more relevant to the theme of responsibility in the “Living In Sin” poem. With her new family, Rich wanted, according to the same Guardian article, to make certain she was still a poet. One year after publishing The Diamond Cutters, Rich journaled that she was feeling indifferent about writing and reading poetry and, in fact, took almost 10 years before producing another volume of work.