At this point, the emerging women's movement during the 1960s provided Rich with the ratification she needed. The movement articulated the very feelings of conflict she was experiencing on a personal, sexual and cultural level. This also allowed her to participate in a dialogue with her environment via the platform developed by the social movements arising during this time. Whereas her first poetry was therefore formal and unemotional, both her own development and that in the society of time allowed her poetry to become more uniquely her own than it ever was before. It is from this platform that Rich was able to begin writing poetry not only to voice her own experiences and feelings, but also to inspire others to abandon social complacency.

Another important development in Rich's life is her family's movement to New York in 1966. Here she began to teach in a remedial English program for...
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