Lola Ridge stands as a compelling and somewhat enigmatic figure in the landscape of early twentieth-century American poetry. While her name may not resonate with the same immediate recognition as her contemporaries Ezra Pound, H.D., or William Carlos Williams, her contribution to the modernist movement was profound, particularly in her fusion of avant-garde aesthetics with unflinching social realism. Born on December…
“I shall try to show that woman has not only a creative will, but a very great future in creative art.”
Neighbourhood:
American Poets, Edwardian Poets, Irish Poets, Modernist Poets, Political Poets, Social Justice Poets, Women Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Despair, Irony
Emma Lazarus was born in New York City on 22 July 1849 and died there on 19 November 1887, only thirty-eight years later. Her name is now inseparable from “The New Colossus,” the sonnet whose plea for the world’s “tired,” “poor,” and “huddled masses” has become the verbal companion to the Statue of Liberty. Yet the familiarity of those lines has often obscured the larger achievement of the woman who wrote them. Lazar…
“I cannot resist the impulse of expressing to you my extreme disappointment at finding you have so far modified the enthusiastic estimate you held of my literary labors as to refuse me a place in the large and miscellaneous collection of poems you have just edited. I find myself treated with absolute contempt in the very quarter where I had been encouraged to build my fondest hopes.”
Neighbourhood:
American Poets, Political Poets, Social Justice Poets, Victorian Poets, Women Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Spirituality, Wonder
