 In 1951, her last year at college, Rich's first collection of poetry, "A Change of World", was selected by the senior poet W. H. Auden for the Yale Series of Younger Poets Award; he went on to write the introduction to the published volume.Following her graduation, Rich received a Guggenheim Fellowship to study at Oxford for a year.Following a visit to Florence, she chose not to return to Oxford, and spent her remaining time in Europe writing and exploring Italy.