 Her next published piece, "An Atlas of the Difficult World" (1991), won both the "Los Angeles Times" Book Award in Poetry and the Lenore Marshall/"Nation" Award as well as the Poet's Prize in 1993 and Commonwealth Award in Literature in 1991.During the 1990s Rich became an active member of numerous advisory boards such as the Boston Woman's Fund, National Writers Union and Sisterhood in Support of Sisters in South Africa.On the role of the poet, she wrote, "We may feel bitterly how little our poems can do in the face of seemingly out-of-control technological power and seemingly limitless corporate greed, yet it has always been true that poetry can break isolation, show us to ourselves when we are outlawed or made invisible, remind us of beauty where no beauty seems possible, remind us of kinship where all is represented as separation."