English professor Toni McNaron said she would have understood if poet Adrienne Rich canceled her reading last night in Ted Mann Concert Hall.

But even after the government grounded all commercial air traffic Tuesday, Rich – instead of remaining stranded in Columbia, Missouri – hired a driver and drove the 13 hours to Minneapolis.

Near the end of one Rich read, “I know you are reading this poem listening for something, torn between bitterness and hope / … / I know you are reading this poem because there is nothing else left to read/there where you have landed, stripped as you are.”

These lines and the suddenly apt title of the poem, “An Atlas of the Difficult World,” might have been what those present came to hear. McNaron, who introduced Rich, admitted as much, saying she had hoped for guidance after Tuesday.

Slightly stooped by age and walking with a cane as she entered the stage, Rich received a standing ovation before she had spoken one word.

Sandwiched around the reading of published pieces and poems from a new collection entitled “Fox,” Rich addressed Tuesday’s events, calling for those present to “create a space where that impulse to destroy and kill will not be furthered.”

And before leaving the stage, Rich halted the mostly young crowd and spoke her mind again. This time she urged them – many of whom she assumed thought of themselves as writers an intellectuals – to help reformulate media coverage of the events by contacting organizations and making their opinions known.

However, Rich spent most of her hour and a half reading the free verse and multi-voiced poems that made her an icon in the first place.

Rich referred to herself as “a writer and an activist,” who came to fame for her feminist and highly politicized writings. Certain references within her reading drew singular, determined clapping from the crowd.

But the harder lines were scattered around laughter too, and Rich smiled, too, reading with her head slightly titled and hand resting underneath her chin.

Nevertheless, certain lines from her work leapt out and took on meanings beyond their original impulse.

Rich related “silence rising fumelike from the streets.” Later came a description of “some for whom war is new,” and a scene where “every flag that flies today is a cry of pain.”

In her introduction, McNaron cited Rich’s continuing attempt to explain the laws of history. And, after doing all she could Wednesday night, Rich left the Ted Mann stage to a standing ovation.

Sam Kean welcomes comments at [email protected]