On a spring day in 1823, in the small coastal village of Mattapoisett, Massachusetts, a child was born who would grow to become one of the most original and underappreciated voices in nineteenth-century American literature. Elizabeth Drew Barstow entered the world on May 6, in a town where the rhythms of the sea shaped daily existence and where salt spray and shipbuilding defined the community's character. The second…
“The fire no longer burns as of yore on the altar, the passion has died out, and embers have to be blowed up with the bellows.”
Neighbourhood:
American Poets, Death & Mortality, Love Poets, Nature Poets, Victorian Poets, Women Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Wonder, Spirituality
In the turbulent landscape of early twentieth-century literature, few writers navigated the transition from Victorian sensibilities to modernist innovation with the skill and prescience of May Sinclair. Born Mary Amelia St. Clair Sinclair on August 24, 1863, in Rock Ferry, Cheshire, and dying on November 14, 1946, in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, Sinclair lived through one of the most transformative periods in literary…
“The individual triumphs when the Will-to-live is capable of sublimation.”
Neighbourhood:
LGBTQ+ Poets, Modernist Poets, Women Poets
Emotional landscape: Spirituality, Wonder, Irony
