Modernist Women Poets

Primarily a literary history, Women, Modernism and British Poetry, 1910-1939 provides a timely discussion of individual women poets who have become, or are becoming, well-known as their works are reprinted but about whom little has yet been written. This volume recognizes the contributions, overlooked previously, of such British poets as Anna Wickham, Nancy Cunard, Edith Sitwell, Mina Loy, Charlotte Mew, May Sinclair, Vita Sackville-West and Sylvia Townsend Warner; and the impact of such American poets as H.D., Amy Lowell, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Marianne Moore and Laura Riding on literary practice in Britain. This book primarily maps the poetry scene in Britain but identifies the significance of the network of writers between London, New York and Paris. It assesses women's participation in the diversity of modernist developments which include avant-garde experiments, quiet, but subtly challenging, formalism and assertive 'new woman' voices. It not only chronicles women's poetry but also their publications and involvement in running presses, bookshops and writing criticism. Although historically situated, it is written from the perspective of contemporary debates concerning the interface of gender and modernism. The author argues that a cohering aesthetic of the poetry is a denial of femininity through various evasions of gendered identity such as masking, male and female impersonations and the rupturing of realist modes.

Women played a central role in literary modernism, theorizing, debating, writing, and publishing the critical and imaginative work that resulted in a new literary culture during the early twentieth century. This volume provides a thorough overview of the main genres, the important issues, and the key figures in women's writing during the years 1890–1945. The essays treat the work of Woolf, Stein, Cather, H. D. Barnes, Hurston, and many others in detail; they also explore women's salons, little magazines, activism, photography, film criticism, and dance. Written especially for this Companion, these lively essays introduce students and scholars to the vibrant field of women's modernism.

Thirteen original essays on Gertrude Stein, H. D., Marianne Moore, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Laura (Riding) Jackson, Elizabeth Bishop, Muriel Rukeyser, and Gwendolyn Brooks demonstrate how these women expand the social, textual, and political boundaries of modernism. The collection places these poets in the context of their times, examining the conditions that helped shape their vivid and diverse poetic careers and reconsidering some of the assumptions that have led to their exclusion from the main narratives of modernist poetry. Ultimately, the aim is to enlarge the literary history of the movement—for gendered, modernism extends backward to the first years of the century, and forward to the beginnings of postmodernism in the 1960s.

A COMPANION TO MODERNIST POETRY A Companion to Modernist Poetry A Companion to Modernist Poetry presents contemporary approaches to modernist poetry in a uniquely in-depth and accessible text. The first section of the volume reflects the attention to historical and cultural context that has been especially fruitful in recent scholarship. The second section focuses on various movements and groupings of poets, placing writers in literary history and indicating the currents and countercurrents whose interaction generated the category of modernism as it is now broadly conceived. The third section traces the arcs of twenty-one poets’ careers, illustrated by analyses of key works. The Companion thus offers breadth in its presentation of historical and literary contexts and depth in its attention to individual poets; it brings recent scholarship to bear on the subject of modernist poetry while also providing guidance on poets who are historically important and who are likely to appear on syllabi and to attract critical interest for many years to come. Edited by two highly respected and notable critics in the field, A Companion to Modernist Poetry boasts a varied list of contributors who have produced an intense, focused study of modernist poetry.

The 20th century was a time of great change, particularly in the arts, but seldom explored were the female poets of that time. Robert Hass and Paul Ebenkamp have put together a comprehensive anthology of poetry featuring the poems of Gertrude Stein, Lola Ridge, Amy Lowell, Elsa Von Freytag–Loringhoven, Adelaide Crapsey, Angelina Weld Grimke, Anne Spencer, Mina Loy, Hazel Hall, Hilda Doolittle, Marianne Moore, Djuna Barnes, and Hildegarde Flanner. With an introduction from Hass and Ebenkamp, as well as detailed annotation through out to guide the reader, this wonderful collection of poems will bring together the great female writers of the modernist period as well as deconstruct the language and writing that surfaced during that period.

The 20th century was a time of great change, particularly in the arts, but seldom explored were the female poets of that time. Robert Hass and Paul Ebenkamp have put together a comprehensive anthology of poetry featuring the poems of Gertrude Stein, Lola Ridge, Amy Lowell, Elsa Von Freytag–Loringhoven, Adelaide Crapsey, Angelina Weld Grimke, Anne Spencer, Mina Loy, Hazel Hall, Hilda Doolittle, Marianne Moore, Djuna Barnes, and Hildegarde Flanner. With an introduction from Hass and Ebenkamp, as well as detailed annotation through out to guide the reader, this wonderful collection of poems will bring together the great female writers of the modernist period as well as deconstruct the language and writing that surfaced during that period.

Modernist Poetry, Gender and Leisure Technologies: Machine Amusements explores how modernist women poets were inspired by leisure technologies to write new versions of the gendered subject. Focusing on American women writers and particularly on the city of New York, the book argues that the poetry of modernist women that engages with, examines or critiques the new leisure technologies of their era is fundamentally changed by the encounter with that technology. The chapters in the book focus on shopping, advertising, dance, film, radio and phonography, on city spaces such as Coney Island, Greenwich Village and Harlem, and on poetry that embraces the linguistic and formal innovations of modernism whilst paying close attention to the embodied politics of gender. The technologized city, and the leisure cultures and media forms emerging from it, enabled modernist women writers to re-imagine forms of lyric embodiment, inspired by the impact of technology on modern ideas of selfhood and subjectivity.

As authors and publishers, individuals and collectives, women significantly shaped the modernist movement. While figures such as Virginia Woolf and Gertrude Stein have received acclaim, authors from marginalized communities and those who wrote for mass, middlebrow audiences also created experimental and groundbreaking work. The essays in this volume explore formal aspects and thematic concerns of modernism while also challenging rigid notions of what constitutes literary value as well as the idea of a canon with fixed boundaries. The essays contextualize modernist women's writing in the material and political concerns of the early twentieth century and in life on the home front during wartime. They consider the original print contexts of the works and propose fresh digital approaches for courses ranging from high school through graduate school. Suggested assignments provide opportunities for students to write creatively and critically, recover forgotten literary works, and engage with their communities.