Living in Sin

“Living in Sin” is a lyric poem with features of a narrative poem by poet/essayist Adrienne Rich from her 1955 collection The Diamond Cutters. This poem results from Rich’s time as a married woman raising three children before her coming out to the public and feminist speaking engagements. The poem expresses the beginnings of her discomfort with traditional women’s roles that took on a more potent force in Rich’s later work, paving the way for her writing in the style of Confessional poetry, usually attributed to the likes of Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath.

Poet Biography

Adrienne Cecile Rich was born in 1929 in Baltimore, Maryland to Arnold Rice, renowned chairman of pathology at Johns Hopkins University, and Helen Elizabeth, a composer and pianist, who were anticipating a boy they planned to name “Arnold.” Rich was raised Christian in her mother’s Protestant traditions rather than her father’s Jewish heritage. Rich’s father encouraged her interest in reading and writing and, overall, had high expectations for her learning in the hopes of fostering a prodigy. His book collection allowed her to read playwright Henrik Ibsen and poet Lord Alfred Tennyson, among others.