-------------------- N E W S  R E L E A S E --------------------

            Auburn University - University Relations
                         (334) 844-9999
----------------------------------------------------------------

5/5/95                  Janet McCoy

POET ADRIENNE RICH TO SPEAK AT AU MAY 9-10 AS FRANKLIN LECTURER

      AUBURN -- Adrienne Rich, considered one of America's most 
distinguished poets, will speak at Auburn University on Tuesday, May 9, 
as part of the 1994-95 Franklin Lectures in the Sciences and Humanities.
      Rich will give a public lecture on "Poetry Reading with 
Commentary" at 4 p.m. in the AU Hotel and Conference Center auditorium. 
The event is free and open to the public. In addition, Rich will speaking 
to a variety of classes in the humanities on May 9 and 10.
      Rich began her career in 1951 with her volume in the Yale Younger 
Poet series, and her most recent publication is What Is Found There: 
Notebooks on Poetry and Politics .  She has published 10 volumes of 
poetry, including Diving into the Wreck,  which won a national book award 
in 1973; Your Native Land, Your Life; and An Atlas of the Difficult 
World.  Her prose volumes include Of Woman Born:  Motherhood as 
Experience and Institution.
      She is the recipient of the 1992 Frost Silver Medal from the 
Poetry Society of America for distinguished lifetime achievement.
      Educated at Radcliffe, her work has been translated into a dozen 
foreign languages in Europe and in the far and middle East.  Rich has 
taught at Swarthmore, Columbia, Brandeis, Cornell and since 1986, at 
Stanford University.
      The Franklin Lectures in the Sciences and Humanities, begun in 
1967, is sponsored by the John and Mary Franklin Foundation of Atlanta.
# # #
may95:rich        
CONTACT: Committee Chair Taylor Littleton, 334/844-4373.