In the vast and often storm-tossed landscape of American literature, certain voices emerge not from the bustling centers of culture, but from the quiet, salt-sprayed margins. Celia Laighton Thaxter, born on June 29, 1835, on the windswept island of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, was such a voice—a poet whose work bloomed with the wildflowers of the Isles of Shoals, whose verses carried the rhythm of the Atlantic tides, a…
“This very act of planting a seed in the earth has in it to me something beautiful. I always do it with a joy that is largely mixed with awe.”
Neighbourhood:
American Poets, Nature Poets, Victorian Poets, Women Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Sorrow, Tenderness
Edith Matilda Thomas was born on 12 August 1854 in Chatham, Ohio, and died on 13 September 1925 in New York City. During her lifetime she was admired as one of the most accomplished American lyric poets of the late nineteenth century, praised by editors, fellow writers, and readers for verse that joined close observation of nature to emotional reserve, formal intelligence, and a searching spiritual imagination. Yet s…
“Throughout the winter, nature's active and crescent principle seems never held wholly in abeyance.”
Neighbourhood:
American Poets, Nature Poets, Victorian Poets, Women Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Longing, Despair
