By Nava Atlas | On October 14, 2024 | Updated December 16, 2024 | Comments (0)
Effie Lee Newsome (1885–1979), a writer associated with the Harlem Renaissance, wrote poetry that was widely published in journals and anthologies of the 1920s. Notably, these included NAACP’s The Crisis and the Urban League’s Opportunity, and Caroling Dusk: An Anthology of Verse by Negro Poets, edited by Countee Cullen.
Mary Effie Lee was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and raised in Wilberforce, Ohio. She took classes at Wilberforce University, Oberlin College, the Philadelphia Academy of the Arts, and the University of Pennsylvania, exploring her dual interests in writing and art. Effie and her sister Consuelo both did illustration for children’s magazines.
As the editor of the children’s column “Little Page” in The Crisis, Effie Lee was one of the first to write poems expressly for Black children. Her poetry encouraged younger readers to appreciate their worth and beauty. Read More→
By Nava Atlas | On October 13, 2024 | Comments (0)
Mina Loy (1882 – 1966) was an English-born poet, playwright, and artist. She was lauded by her peers for her dense analyses of the female experience in early twentieth-century Western society. Here lasting impact is arguably as a modernist poet.
She was associated with other great minds and literary innovators of her time, like T.S. Eliot, William Carlos Williams, Marianne Moore, Sylvia Beach, Sinclair Lewis, Ezra Pound, and others.
“Love Songs,” a poem that first appeared in print in 1915, is among her best known works. Read More→
By Nava Atlas | On July 17, 2024 | Comments (1)
Dame Edith Sitwell (1887 – 1964), the British poet, literary critic, and famous eccentric, began publishing her poetry in 1913. With a modernist edge, some of it inscrutably abstract, some even set to music and sound.
Because of her dramatic self-presentation and manner of dress, she was sometimes criticized as a dilettante, but overall, her literary legacy remained intact and has grown over the years. Her poetry is praised for its craftsmanship and attention to technique. Read More→
By Alex J. Coyne | On September 15, 2023 | Updated January 7, 2024 | Comments (0)
The landscape of Southern Africa is sometimes harsh and unforgiving. The same may be said about much of the country’s history. Still, it is impossible to experience the country without feeling inspired by its culture, nature, and sheer spirit.
The country’s literary legacy has produced legendary authors like Olive Schreiner, Nadine Gordimer, and Elsa Joubert. There are just as many poets, like Ingrid Jonker, Elisabeth Eybers, and the others listed here, who have forever etched their words and phrases in world literature.
Here are six notable South African women poets to add to your reading list, with links to samples of their poetry if English translation is available. Read More→
By Taylor Jasmine | On June 26, 2023 | Updated October 13, 2024 | Comments (0)
It’s not easy to choose a few of best or most famous poems by Amy Lowell (1874 – 1925), the influential American imagist poet. She was quite prolific, so choosing just ten iconic poems from her vast trove to represent her large body of work is no easy task.
The poems presented here are among Lowell’s most iconic and anthologized. She defined Imagist poetry as the “concentration is of the very essence of poetry” which aimed to “produce poetry that is hard and clear, never blurred nor indefinite.”
Amy Lowell was also a practitioner of “vers libre,” or free verse poetry (here’s the poet herself on vers libre). Her contemporary reconsideration reflects her rediscovery as a lesbian poet (“A Decade”), and she was also an antiwar poet (“Patterns”) of some distinction. Read More→
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