I see it a lot in my students that the ONLY mode they can engage with literature on is one in which they either say it's good because it's "relatable" or it's bad because they "can't relate to it" as well, and I feel like this is a symptom of the same problem. An unwillingness to engage with fiction outside of its ability to be a mirror to your specific worldview and set of morals. But art doesn't exist to give you moral purity badges--it's a mode of expression that produces conversations between artists and readers. And to engage in those converesations on an adult level you need to learn to process the discomfort of flawed human realities productively.
Happy Women's History Month! I'm kicking things off this year with a look back at the women poets I read in 2022.
This is a long post so you can also read it on WordPress or Ko-fi, if you prefer the formatting on those sites!
Louise Glück (b.1943)
Glück is an American poet and essayist who often explores trauma and desire through mythological and natural imagery. I was drawn to her poetic voice, which is strong and unique, and I found myself deeply affected by the poems that I read (which is exactly what you want when reading poetry!). Glück often uses free verse – no rhyme scheme or meter to be found – which is, admittedly, not my favourite type of poetry but there’s still a sense of rhythm to the poetry and her work is very readable.
You can read some of her poetry on Poetry Foundation but some of her other poems are available online! If you’re looking to read one collection, most of the poems I read were from The Triumph of Achilles (1985) but you can also pick up a collection of her works up to 2020 in Poems: 1962–2020*.
Two of my favourites were:
Penelope’s Song
Summer
Louise Bogan (1897-1970)
Bogan was an American poet and the first woman to be appointed Poet Laureate to the Library of Congress. She published six collections of poetry between 1923 and 1968 but she also published prose and translations. Her work tends to be lyric poetry, a formal style with regular meter and rhyme, and her style is beautifully subtle. Her work is understated but she was very deliberate in her choices and didn’t follow trends. I just think her poetry is wonderful.
Some of her poetry is available on Poetry Foundation and you can read her first collection, Body of his Death (1923), over on Internet Archive for free. I read a fair number of poems by Bogan in 2022 but my favourites were:
Medusa
Leave-taking
Women
Anna Seward (1742-1809)
I had encountered Seward before my poetry challenge in 2022 because I love Romantic poetry and Seward was an English Romantic poet. However, I’d never just read her work for please, it was always for classes, so it was really nice to be to enjoy her work without analysing it too much. Seward began writing poetry in the late 1750s but her first poem wasn’t published in 1780. She wrote sonnets and elegies, which were often autobiographical, and she wrote about female friendship.
You can read her works on Poetry Foundation and Eighteenth-Century Poetry Archive!
Herva, at the Tomb of Argantyr. A Runic Dialogue
Sonnet
Eyam
Anne Hunter (1741-1821)
Hunter, also known sometimes as Anne Home Hunter (Home being her maiden name), was a poet in Georgian England who often entertained other members of the Bluestocking Society at her home in London. She was most well-known as a songwriter and lyric poet and many of her poems were set to music by Joseph Haydn. Hunter was a Romantic poet who wrote ballads and odes, exploring typical Romantic themes alongside domestic themes.
Her poetry is available on Poetry Foundation and Eighteenth-Century Poetry Archive.
Fairy Revels
A Mermaid’s Song
Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950)
Millay was an American lyric poet and notable feminist in New York City during the Roaring Twenties and beyond. She was highly regarded in her own time but her work was later dismissed for using traditional forms. Millay used her poetry as a form of feminist activism and wrote on taboo subjects, such as female sexuality. What I enjoyed most about Millay’s poetry is that there was a sense of freedom to her works, even within the confines of the rhyme and meter of lyric poetry. Her works are creative, emotional, and beautifully written.
Some of her works are available on Poetry Foundation, Internet Archive, and Project Gutenberg but I really liked reading the Everyman’s Pocket Poets edition* of her works because it worked as an introduction to her poetry for me.
I read a number of her works last year because I was so enamoured with her but three of my favourites were:
Low-tide
Prayer to Persephone
Mariposa
Ada Limón (b.1976)
Limón is an American poet and the current Poet Laureate of the United States by the Librarian of Congress. She is of Mexican-American descent, making her the first Latina to become Poet Laureate. Her poems are mostly free verse, as is common now, but it isn’t fragmented or deconstructed. Her poems are thematically diverse but they’re often about self discovery. Limón’s poetry is an expression of her life and I love how powerful her poetic voice is.
She’s the author of seven collections – Lucky wreck* (2006), This Big Fake World (2006), Sharks in the rivers (2010), Bright Dead Things* (2015), The Carrying* (2018), The Hurting Kind* (2022), Shelter: A Love Letter To Trees (2022) – but her work can also be found on Poetry Foundation.
How to Triumph Like a Girl
Late Summer after a Panic Attack
Krystyna Dąbrowska (b.1979)
Dąbrowska is a Polish poet, translator, and essayist. She’s translated poetry from English into Polish and is the author of five published collections of poetry. Her poetry has also been published in the Poetry magazine, accessible through Poetry Foundation. The poems I read were translated into English by Karen Kovacik and I loved Dąbrowska’s use of celestial imagery in Kosmos.
You can also read a few of Dąbrowska in Solstice Literary Magazine and Versopolis.
Kosmos
Spirit of the Forest
Suji Kwock Kim (b.1969)
Kim is a Korean-American poet and the author of two poetry collections, Notes from the Divided Country (2003) and Notes from the North (2020).
I found her poetry very provocative but she focuses on the mundane aspects of life, elevating them and imbuing them with power. I liked the rhythm of her poetry too, despite the lack of set rhyme or meter, and her poetry wasn’t fragmented or disjointed. You can read a selection of her poems on Poetry Foundation and you can find some on Poets.org.
The Couple Next Door
Montage with Neon, Bok Choi, Gasoline, Lovers & Strangers
Katherine Mansfield (1888-1923)
Mansfield was a writer from New Zealand and is considered one of the most influential writers of the modernist movement. She’s best known for her short stories and essays but she also published a collection of poems in 1923.
‘The Opal Dream Cave’ (1911) was one of my favourite poems of the entire year because Mansfield’s use of natural imagery is stunning. Her masterful use of natural imagery made reading her poetry a joy, and I will work my way through the entire collection one day.
A few of her poems are available on Poetry Foundation but the entire collection Poems is also available on Internet Archive.
Camomile Tea
Autumn Song
The Opal Dream Cave
Anna Akhmatova (1889-1966)
Akhmatova was a Russian poet in the 20th century who remained in the Soviet Union when her contemporaries chose to leave to escape censorship, and she is considered one of the most significant poets of her time. Her work was varied in length, from short lyric poems to intricate cycles, and her was thematically diverse but her much of her poetry shares a sense of emotional restraint which makes it unique. It’s stunning, yet understated. She was truly a master of the form.
I read D. M. Thomas’ translations of her works in the Everyman’s Pocket Poets edition* but you can find a few of her works online by other translators, particularly on Poetry Foundation and RuVerses.
Dante
Fragment
Legend of an Unfinished Portrait
****
That’s it for this year’s first Women’s History Month post! I could have added another ten poets to this list but I restrained myself because it’s long enough already. Poetry isn’t everyone’s preferred literary form but these women truly made me appreciate different types of poetry and they defined 2022 as a year for me.
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Images
1. Ada Limón by Shawn Mille – Library of Congress
2. Anna Seward by Tilly Kettle (oil on canvas, 1762) – via National Portrait Gallery
3. Edna St. Vincent Millay by Carl van Vechten (1933)
not to sound like a medieval peasant but, cheese and bread. garlic and butter. a menagerie of spices. potatoes. that’s what life is all about right there.
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This blog is relatively new. I like soft book aesthetics, especially involving coffee shops or flowers. I'd also love to talk to others about books! Some of my favorite books to read involve low fantasy or dystopian elements, or even dark romance novels.
Top one is from today at Indigo - I've been in a weird reading slump where nothing on my shelves really interests me, so I figured I'd try and find some new comics/manga (also picked up some highly anticipated sequels and We Sold our Souls - been meaning to read Hendrix for ages and that one looked interesting!)
Bottom one is from Value Village on Saturday, was very happy to find some Yolen and McKillip (with a gorgeous cover) as well as The Stranger Beside Me, which I've been wanting to read for ages but never seemed to be in stock when I was searching for it.
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Yes, I’m looking for a book that fits my very specific mood. No, I don’t know what that specific mood is, but I’ll know as soon as I find a book that fits it.
