By Nava Atlas | On July 12, 2017 | Updated December 28, 2018 | Comments (0)
American Poet Amy Lowell (1874 – 1925) said of her works in vers libre (free verse) that its rhythms “have not been sufficiently plumbed, that there is in them a power of variation which has never yet been brought to the light of experiment.”
Expounding on her vers libre poetry, she wrote about this particular piece, “In ‘The Cremona Violin’ I have tried to give this flowing, changing rhythm to the parts in which the violin is being played. The effect is farther heightened, because the rest of the poem is written in the seven line Chaucerian stanza.” This poem was originally part of a collection titled Men, Women, and Ghosts (1919). Read More→
By Nava Atlas | On July 12, 2017 | Updated June 18, 2020 | Comments (0)
American poet Amy Lowell (1874 – 1925) was a master of imagist poetry. In an introduction to her “vers libre” poetry, she directs the reader of “A Roxbury Garden” to “find in the first two sections an attempt to give the circular movement of a hoop bowling along the ground, and the up and down, elliptical curve of a flying shuttlecock.”
This poem was originally part of a 1919 collection titled Men, Women, and Ghosts. Read More→
By Jason Horn | On June 11, 2017 | Updated February 7, 2023 | Comments (0)
Elizabeth Barrett Browning is perhaps best known for Sonnet 43. It opens with the infamously sappy line: “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.” Spoiler alert: there are ten ways.
Browning enjoyed much popular and critical success in her life, which continued for some time after her death in 1861, at age 55. Her popularity declined over much of the twentieth century, until interest in it was revived by new biographies and scholarly editions of her works.
Though celebrated for ‘Sonnet 43’, which cold-hearted cynics like myself see as trite and kitschy, the poem “A Dead Rose” (see below) is perhaps more indicative of the talent that made her famous. Read More→
By Emma Ward | On February 16, 2017 | Updated February 16, 2026 | Comments (4)
Presented here is selection of poems by Jessie Redmon Fauset (1882 – 1961), a multi-talented, influential figure in the Harlem Renaissance movement of the 1920s.
Fauset was the literary editor of the magazine of the NAACP, The Crisis, and in her own right was a poet, essayist, translator, and novelist.
While working at The Crisis, she had the opportunity to publish her own work, which included editorials, stories, and poetry. All of the genres in which she wrote were appreciated by readers and literary critics alike. Read More→
By Taylor Jasmine | On May 30, 2016 | Updated October 4, 2022 | Comments (16)
“Now I Become Myself” is a beloved poem by May Sarton (1912 – 1995) that captures the spirit of a well-examined life.
How often do we, especially women, show up to life as someone other than our true self? We’re taught to be people-pleasers, so we wear the face and show the demeanor we think others will expect, instead of being who we truly are.
May Sarton was an American poet, novelist, and memoirist who spent a lifetime learning who she was. Read More→
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