Hardwick so horrified by the metamorphosis of her former friend, who later came out as a lesbian, her friend who rallied to her defense in The American Poetry Review upon publication of The Dolphin (Lowell dismissed the review as “dogmatic feminism” and relegated Rich afterwards in his Harvard seminars to the category of “minor”). “She deliberately made herself ugly and wrote these extreme and ridiculous poems,” Hardwick remarked. Hardwick was most likely shocked by the anger in these poems. (Later in life though Hardwick expressed an admiration for Rich.)
