Great Poems by American Women Read online

  DOVER THRIFT EDITIONS

  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

  Note

  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.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  DOVER THRIFT EDITIONS

  Copyright Page

  Note

  Acknowledgments

  ANNE BRADSTREET (1612?-1672)

  MERCY OTIS WARREN ( 1728-1814)

  ANN ELIZA BLEECKER (1752-1783)

  PHILLIS WHEATLEY (1753?-1784)

  SARAH WENTWORTH MORTON (1759-1846)

  SUSANNA HASWELL ROWSON (1762-1824)

  EMMA HART WILLARD (1787—1870)

  SARAH JOSEPHA HALE (1788-1879)

  LYDIA HUNTLEY SIGOURNEY (1791—865)

  MARIA GOWEN BROOKS (1794-1845)

  LYDIA MARIA CHILD (1802-1880)

  SARAH HELEN WHITMAN (1803-1878)

  EMMA C. EMBURY (1806-1863)

  ELIZABETH OAKES-SMITH (1806-1893)

  LUCRETIA DAVIDSON (1808—1825)

  MARGARET FULLER (1810-1850)

  ELIZABETH CLEMENTINE KINNEY ( 1810-1889)

  FRANCES SARGENT OSGOOD (1811-1850)

  HARRIET BEECHER STOWE (1811—1896)

  MARY E. HEWITT (1818?—1894)

  JULIA WARD HOWE (1819—1910)

  ALICE CARY (1820—1871)

  FANNY CROSBY (1820—1915)

  PHOEBE CARY (1824—1871)

  LUCY LARCOM (1824—1893)

  FRANCES E. W. HARPER (1825—1911)

  ETHEL LYNN BEERS (1827—1879)

  ROSE TERRY COOKE (1827—1892)

  HELEN HUNT JACKSON (1830—1885)

  EMILY DICKINSON (1830—1886)

  NORA PERRY (1831—1896)

  LOUISA MAY ALCOTT (1832—1888)

  MARY ASHLEY TOWNSEND (1832—1901)

  ELIZABETH AKERS ALLEN (1832—1911)

  CELIA THAXTER (1835—1894)

  LOUISE CHANDLER MOULTON (1835—1908)

  AUGUSTA COOPER BRISTOL (1835—1910)

  SARAH MORGAN PIATT (1836—1919)

  CHARLOTTE L. FORTEN GRIMKÉ (1837—1914)

  MARY MAPES DODGE (1838—1905)

  MARGARET E. SANGSTER (1838—1912)

  CONSTANCE FENIMORE WOOLSON (1840—1894)

  INA DONNA COOLBRITH (1841—1928)

  EMMA LAZARUS (1849—1887)

  SARAH ORNE JEWETT (1849—1909)

  ELLA WHEELER WILCOX (1850—1919)

  ROSE HARTWICK THORPE (1850-1939)

  ROSE HAWTHORNE LATHROP (1851-1926)

  KATE NICHOLS TRASK (1853-1922)

  EDITH M. THOMAS (1854-1925)

  LIZETTE WOODWORTH REESE (1856-1935)

  KATHARINE LEE BATES (1859-1929)

  CHARLOTTE PERK
INS GILMAN (1860-1935)

  HARRIET MONROE (1860-1936)

  LOUISE IMOGEN GUINEY (1861-1920)

  GRACE ELLERY CHANNING-STETSON (1862-1937)

  EDITH WHARTON (1862-1937)

  WILLA CATHER (1873-1947)

  JOSEPHINE PRESTON PEABODY (1874-1922)

  AMY LOWELL (1874—1925)

  ALICE DUNBAR-NELSON (1875-1935)

  ANNA HEMPSTEAD BRANCH (1875-1937)

  SARA TEASDALE (1884-1933)

  ELINOR WYLIE (1885-1928)

  HAZEL HALL (1886-1924)

  HILDA DOOLITTLE (1886—1961)

  GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON (1886—1966)

  MARIANNE MOORE (1887—1972)

  EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY (1892—1950)

  DOROTHY PARKER (1893—1967)

  GENEVIEVE TAGGARD (1894—1948)

  LOUISE BOGAN (1897—1970)

  GWENDOLYN BROOKS (1917—2000)

  SYLVIA PLATH (1932—1963)

  Alphabetical List of Poets

  Alphabetical List of Titles and First Lines

  DOVER · THRIFT · EDITIONS

  Acknowledgments

  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.

  ANNE BRADSTREET (1612?-1672)

  The first colonial woman poet, Anne Bradstreet came to Massachusetts Bay in 1630. Her poetry was first published in London in 1650 under the title The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America and later in a posthumous edition. Both her father and her husband became governors of the colony. Much of her poetry reflects themes in her personal life-her relationship with her husband and her eight children. Bradstreet’s poems also contain her religious outlook and perceptions.

  The Prologue

  To sing of Wars, of Captains, and of Kings,

  Of Cities founded, Common-wealths begun,

  For my mean pen are too superiour things,

  Or how they all or each their dates have run:

  Let Poets and Historians set these forth;

  My obscure Lines shall not so dim their worth.

  But when my wondring eyes and envious heart

  Great Bartas sugar’d lines do but read o’re,

  Fool, I do grudg the Muses did not part

  ’Twixt him and me that overfluent store;

  A Bartas can do what a Bartas will,

  But simple I according to my skill.

  From school-boyes tongue no rhet‘rick we expect,

  Nor yet a sweet Consort from broken strings,

  Nor perfect beauty where’s a main defect:

  My foolish, broken, blemish’d Muse so sings;

  And this to mend, alas, no Art is able,

  ’Cause nature made it so irreparable.

  Nor can I, like that fluent sweet-tongu’d Greek

  Who lisp’d at first, in future times speak plain;

  By Art he gladly found what he did seek,

  A full requital of his striving pain:

  Art can do much; but this maxime’s most sure,

  A weak or wounded brain admits no cure.

  I am obnoxious to each carping tongue

  Who says my hand a needle better fits;

  A Poets pen all scorn I should thus wrong,

  For such despite they cast on Female wits:

  If what I do prove well it won’t advance;

  They’l say it’s stoln, or else it was by chance.

  But sure the antique Greeks were far more mild,

  Else of our Sexe why feigned they those Nine,

  And poesy made Calliope’s own Child?

  So ’mongst the rest they placed the Arts Divine.

  But this weak knot they will full soon untie:

  The Greeks did nought but play the fools & lye.

  Let Greeks be Greeks, and women what they are,

  Men have precedency and still excell:

  It is but vain unjustly to wage warre;

  Men can do best, and women know it well:

  Preheminence in all and each is yours;

  Yet grant some small acknowledgement of ours.

  And oh ye high flown quills that soar the Skies,

  And ever with your prey still catch your praise,

  If e’re you daigne these lowly lines your eyes,

  Give Thyme or Parsley wreath, I ask no bayes:

  This mean and unrefined ure of mine,

  Will make your glistring gold but more to shine.

  The Author to Her Book

  Thou ill-formed offspring of my feeble brain,

  Who after birth didst by my side remain,

  Till snatched from thence by friends, less wise than true,

  Who thee abroad, exposed to public view,

  Made thee in rags, halting to th’ press to trudge,

  Where errors were not lessened (all may judge).

  At thy return my blushing was not small,

  My rambling brat (in print) should mother call,

  I cast thee by as one unfit for light,

  Thy visage was so irksome in my sight;

  Yet being mine own, at length affection would

  Thy blemishes amend, if so I could:

  I washed thy face, but more defects I saw,

  And rubbing off a spot still made a flaw.

  I stretched thy joints to make thee even feet,

  Yet still thou run’s more hobbling than is meet;

  In better dress to trim thee was my mind,

  But nought save homespun cloth i’ th’ house I find.

  In this array ’mongst vulgars may’st thou roam.

  In critic’s hands beware thou dost not come,

  And take thy way where yet thou art not known;

  And for thy mother, she alas is poor,

  Which caused her thus to send thee out of door.

  To My Dear and Loving Husband

  If ever two were one, then surely we.

  If ever man were loved by wife, then thee;

  If ever wife was happy in a man,

  Compare with me, ye women, if you
can.

  I prize thy love more than whole mines of gold

  Or all the riches that the East doth hold.

  My love is such that rivers cannot quench,

  Nor ought but love from thee, give recompense.

  Thy love is such I can no way repay,

  The heavens reward thee manifold, I pray.

  Then while we live, in love let’s so persevere

  That when we live no more, we may live ever.

  Before the Birth of One of Her Children

  All things within this fading world hath end,

  Adversity doth still our joys attend;

  No ties so strong, no friends so dear and sweet,

  But with death’s parting blow is sure to meet.

  The sentence past is most irrevocable,

  A common thing, yet oh, inevitable.

  How soon, my Dear, death may my steps attend,

  How soon’t may be thy lot to lose thy friend,

  We both are ignorant, yet love bids me

  These farewell lines to recommend to thee,

  That when that knot’s untied that made us one,

  I may seem thine, who in effect am none.

  And if I see not half my days that’s due,

  What nature would, God grant to yours and you;

  The many faults that well you know I have

  Let be interred in my oblivious grave;

  If any worth or virtue were in me,

  Let that live freshly in thy memory

  And when thou feel’st no grief, as I no harms,

  Yet love thy dead, who long lay in thine arms.

  And when thy loss shall be repaid with gains

  Look to my little babes, my dear remains.