Great Poems by American Women

GENERAL EDITOR: PAUL NEGRI
EDITOR OF THIS VOLUME: SUSAN L. RATTINER

 

 

 

 

 

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: see page xv.

Copyright

Copyright © 1998 by Dover Publications, Inc.

All rights reserved under Pan American and International Copyright Conventions.

 

 

Bibliographical Note

Great Poems by American Women
is a new anthology, first published by Dover Publications, Inc., in 1998.

 

 

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Great poems by American women : an anthology / edited by Susan L. Rattiner.

p. cm.—(Dover thrift editions)

Includes index.

9780486112657

1. American poetry—Women authors. I. Rattiner, Susan L. II. Series.

PS589.G68 1998
811.008'09287—dc21

98-4391
CIP

 

 

Manufactured in the United States of America
Dover Publications, Inc., 31 East 2nd Street, Mineola, N.Y. 11501

From the sentimentality of Anne Bradstreet to the raw emotion of Sylvia Plath, this anthology represents the great diversity in style and substance of American women's poetry from colonial times to the twentieth century. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, women poets primarily wrote for their own pleasure and never expected to have their work published. Anne Bradstreet was the first colonial woman poet in America. Bradstreet's most amazing accomplishment as a poet was the publication of her verse in 1650. Her poems, focusing on traditional female roles, traversed such topics as motherhood, marriage, and domestic life. Unlike most of the other early poets in this anthology, Bradstreet was encouraged to write by her husband.

Acquiescing to the demands and pressures of their spouses and other family members, many women poets were forced to abandon their writing. Prevailing male attitudes hindered the female poet's originality and creativity. “It is less easy to be assured of the genuineness of literary ability in women than in men”: this is the opening sentence to Rufus W. Griswold's preface to
The Female Poets of America
in 1849. Even the anthologist himself, hailed for bringing these women poets to the public, subscribes to the gender stereotype. Ironically, Griswold's anthology was one of the first devoted exclusively to women's verse and yet fostered the male-centered values of nineteenth-century American culture.

Over the next several decades, subsequent anthologies of women's poetry appeared, including Caroline May's
The American Female Poets,
and several others. However, only a select few poets, such as Emily Dickinson, Emma Lazarus, and Edna St. Vincent Millay, left a lasting impression. A large number of minor poets have no name recognition today since they were omitted from later collections. Most women poets in the nineteenth century contributed their verse to newspapers, magazines, and journals wishing to increase female readership. Poets submitted what became known as
potboilers
, seemingly inferior works that were turned out for quick profit. These poets were usually widows with children to raise, and their writing became their livelihood. The transient nature of these periodicals ensured that these women writers did not achieve an enduring fame. In many cases, the poems became famous, and the poet's name fell by the wayside. “America the Beautiful,” written by Katharine Lee Bates in 1893 after climbing Pike's Peak, was set to music by Horatio Parker. Very few people know that this was written by a woman, and even fewer can recall her name.

A large percentage of the poets featured here were born in New England, where there were greater educational opportunities. In the eighteenth century, Mercy Otis Warren gleaned her education from her brother's tutor, later writing a three-volume history of the American Revolution based on her diary. A mother of five children, Warren also wrote political plays in addition to poetry. Phillis Wheatley, brought to America on a slave ship, was the first African-American woman poet. She was educated with her master's children and urged to pursue publication. Another female pioneer was Emma Hart Willard, who started the first secondary school for women. She taught women all the subjects traditionally considered to be “male,” including history, geography, trigonometry, and algebra. Willard was responsible for training hundreds of women as teachers.

Spanning more than three centuries of women's verse, this anthology, containing 209 poems, hopes to rescue many long-forgotten poets from obscurity. Since many of these poets are unfamiliar to readers today, a brief biographical note precedes each selection. This volume represents just a sampling of American women poets—many were omitted for reasons of space. The dearth of information about some of these women poets is astounding; poems may have been lost over time, discarded in old journals, or destroyed. Anonymous publications, multiple pseudonyms, and surname changes with marriages and remarriages all combine to make gathering biographical data a difficult task. As a result, information about some of these women is sketchy at best. The seventy-four poets in this collection are arranged chronologically, providing the reader with a fine introduction to America's women poets.

Louise Bogan: “Medusa” and “Women” from
The Blue Estuaries
by Louise Bogan. Copyright © 1968 by Louise Bogan. Copyright renewed © 1996 by Ruth Limmer. Reprinted by permission of Farrar, Straus & Giroux, Inc.

 

Gwendolyn Brooks: “Jessie Mitchell's Mother” by Gwendolyn Brooks. Copyright © 1991, from
Blacks,
published by Third World Press, Chicago, 1991. Reprinted with the permission of Gwendolyn Brooks.

 

Hilda Doolittle: “Helen” by H.D., from
Collected Poems, 1912—1944.
Copyright © 1982 by The Estate of Hilda Doolittle. Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corp.

 

Edna St. Vincent Millay: “I, being born a woman and distressed,” “Euclid alone has looked on Beauty bare,” and “What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why” by Edna St. Vincent Millay. From
Collected Poems,
HarperCollins. Copyright 1923, 1951 by Edna St. Vincent Millay and Norma Millay Ellis. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission of Elizabeth Barnett, literary executor.

 

Marianne Moore: “Poetry” by Marianne Moore reprinted with the permission of Simon & Schuster from
The Collected Poems of Marianne Moore.
Copyright 1935 by Marianne Moore; copyright renewed © 1963 by Marianne Moore and T.S. Eliot.

 

Dorothy Parker: “One Perfect Rose” and “Unfortunate Coincidence” by Dorothy Parker, copyright 1926, renewed © 1954 by Dorothy Parker, from The Portable
Dorothy Parker
by Dorothy Parker, Introduction by Brendan Gill. Used by permission of Viking Penguin, a division of Penguin Putnam, Inc.

 

Sylvia Plath: “Daddy” and “Lady Lazarus” from
Ariel
by Sylvia Plath. Copyright © 1963 by Ted Hughes. Copyright renewed. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.

 

Sara Teasdale: “Appraisal” and “The
Solitary”
by Sara Teasdale reprinted with the permission of Simon & Schuster from
The Collected Poems of Sara Teasdale.
Copyright © 1926 by Macmillan Publishing Company, renewed 1954 by Mamie T. Wheless.

 

Elinor Wylie: “Let No Charitable Hope” from
Collected Poems
by Elinor Wylie. Copyright 1932 by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. and renewed 1960 by Edwina C. Rubenstein. Reprinted by permission of the publisher.