In her book An American Triptych, Wendy Martin writes about three extraordinary women poets. Martin takes you through the history of the lives of Anne Bradstreet's Puritanism to Emily Dickinson's transdentalism to Adrienne Rich's modern feminism. In this book you will learn how much their lives were alike and different and how each lived in different time periods. "This book is an effort not only to understand the experience of three major women poets whose art spans the period of our nations history, but also suggests the outlines of an American female poetic"(11).
             Wendy Martin shows how each woman expressed their experience in context during their historical period. "Anne Bradstreet was the first woman poet in the New World; Emily Dickinson, in the nineteenth century, became a model for all women poets who followed, a model of eccentricity and isolation; Adrienne Rich, our contemporary, confronted the meaning of the American female poetic career"(3). All three of these women had to deal with dominant fathers, religion, and ways to find the time to write their poetry. Anne Bradstreet wrote poetry when all of her other obligations as wife and mother were done. This meant that most of her writing was done when she should have been sleeping. She also struggled with her feelings about God. She wanted to believe in her faith but than began to have doubts especially when she began experiencing tragedies
             in her life. "Anne Bradstreet did not risk censure and exile, but her poetry reveals that she continues to have doubts about salvation and eternal like for much of her life"(21). At the end of her life she felt that her faith was based on a profound desire to remain connected to life, whether in this world or the next.
             Emily Dickinson made sure she had all the time she needed to write her poetry. She remained in her parent's home and lived a
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