Modernist Women Poets: An Anthology

by Robert Hass (editor), Paul Ebenkamp (Editor)

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.

Genres: Poetry, Contemporary, Literature, Anthologies, Female Authors

384 pages, Paperback

First published March 12, 2013

About the author

Robert Hass was born in San Francisco and lives in Berkeley, California, where he teaches at the University of California. He served as Poet Laureate of the United States from 1995 to 1997. A MacArthur Fellow and a two-time winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award, he has published poems, literary essays, and translations. He is married to the poet Brenda Hillman.

Reviews

[Jenny (Reading Envy) · Rating 5 out of 5]

I received a review copy of this from NetGalley, and decided to read it even though National Poetry Month was two months ago.

The world of literature and the arts changed considerably in the post-Victorian age, and poetry was no exception. This volume compiles sixteen female poets and some of their best poems, just in the context of each other. You can feel the hold of the previous century in some of the language and themes, but you can also witness them breaking out of it, experimenting, and telling the truth.

I knew I loved Mina Loy already, but she was the only one of the group I had read multiple poems by before reading this anthology. I knew of Gertrude Stein of course, and her magical world at the center of Paris intellectual life in the 1900s-1920s, but I hadn't ever read anything by her.

Some of my favorite poems:

Death Ray by Lola Ridge
"...Only my heart like a splintered vase is envious of the light it cannot hold."
IV
"Balance a sunbeam as you would a jar
Filled with clear water where no waters are...
Let not slip silently back in the sun,
There to be as in a field no more than one
Of many dandelions... this nuclear
Period set against the rushing hour
That holds there, motionless, t he leaning sheer
Stalk of its unfathomable flower...."

Tender Buttons: Objects by Gertrude Stein
"What is the use of a violent kind of delightfulness if there is no pleasure in not getting tired of it...."

Stanzas in Meditation by Gertrude Stein
"In changing it inside out nobody is stout
In changing it for them nobody went
In not changing it then.
They will gradually lengthen
It."

New Heavens for Old by Amy Lowell (full version on Archive.org)
"My fellows call to me to join them,

They shout for me,

Passing the house in a great wind of vermilion

banners.

They are fresh and fulminant,
They are indecent and strut with the thought of it,
They laugh, and curse, and brawl...."

Dissonance by Amy Lowell
"...Proclaiming restlessness
Of an incongruous century."

Release by Adelaide Crapsey
"With swift
Great sweep of her
Magnificent arm my pain
Clanged back the doors that shut my soul
From life."

Grass Fingers by Angelina Weld Grimke

Songs to Joannes by Mina Loy - just greatness. Must read all of it, excerpts won't do.

Footfalls by Hazel Hall
Somehow the version in Poetry Magazine is completely different from what is included in the anthology, that's kind of bizarre.

[Mattea Gernentz · Rating 4 out of 5]

I finished reading this anthology of women modernists (after an art museum visit) at my favorite brasserie in Paris with the best confit de canard. Peak Mattea-ing. <3

"The Presence was spectrum-blue, / ultimate blue ray, / rare as radium, as healing; / my old self, wrapped around me, / was shroud" (248, H.D.'s "The Walls Do Not Fall").

To no one's astonishment, I adored the section on H.D. Reunited with Mina Loy and Gertrude Stein also, which was nice. There were several poets I had never heard of! That was very exciting. I liked Lola Ridge, Djuna Barnes, and Laura Riding. It was all lovely, but where is my gal Hope Mirrlees?

"Death does not give a moment to remember in / Lest, like a statue's too transmuted stone, / I grain by grain recall the original dust / And, looking down a stair of memory, keep saying: / This was never I" (300, Laura Riding's "Incarnations").

[Avryl · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this anthology as a kind of first introduction to women modernist poets. Aware of, and having already enjoyed the works of modernist male poets, I found this collection quite compelling and illuminating. These women were clearly very innovative as the samples of writing featured in this anthology are quite diverse in content and form (although, of course, there is a recurring focus on gender).

I agree with many of the reviews regarding the introduction to this anthology. Personally, I wish that I could have been provided with more insight to these poets and their work throughout the anthology rather than only at the beginning and the end (for example, separate introductions to each of these women before the samples of their work).

[Carolyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hass presents an elegantly-curated collection of 20th c.e. female-identifying poets. The inclusion of the lesser-known dadaist Elsa Von Freytag-Loringhoven is a particular highlight of this anthology. This volume is specifically powerful in that it chronicles radical feminists transcending traditional gender roles for female writers of that era. Unfortunately, the anthology was edited by men alone. The potency of the collection is thereby desanguinated. As readers, we feel as though we're watching crumpled, vased flowers wilt: the male editor encroaches on the female space and plucks her from her native territory.

Rosmarie Waldrop would have made a brilliant editor for this collection. She should be campaigned for the job in the coming years, as modernist poetry and prose will soon reach unprecedented levels of readership.

[C. Varn · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an excellent introduction to Modernist Women Poets, which a good preface by C.D. Wright, the 12 poets collected here are vital to modernism and often under represented in modernist anthologies. Editors Hass and Ebenkamp do a sound job offering a cross-section of the work of each poet, and includes Mina Loy's manifesto. Going beyond Stein, H.D., and Marianne Moore, we get selections of Djuna Barnes, Laura Riding, Mina Loy, Hazel Hall, etc. Increasing the exposure of these poets makes this book exceptional in and of itself, but most of the poems in this volume are excellent artistically and as an archive of an underexplored section of modernist poetic.

[Amber · Rating 2 out of 5]

I couldn't get through this anthology. I think it partly has to do with me not enjoying modernist poetry as much as other styles, but also with the way the anthology is a) patronizingly introduced and b) compiled with the longest, chunkiest pieces in front instead of giving time to ease in to them. Will be looking for other anthologies or collections with these women's work in them, but this one I couldn't even get through.

[Mirjam]

An anthology of women poets edited by two men. Of course.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an excellent introduction to some remarkable, and too often forgotten, American women poets of the period just before and after the First World War. Too much attention has been lavished on those rather tiresome men, Eliot and Pound, and not enough on their contemporaries H.D., Amy Lowell, and Marianne Moore. Most students of American literature already know their names, at least, but there are many other women represented in this collection whose work was new to me, such as The anarchist Lola Ridge, the innovative Adelaide Crapsey, and African American poets such as Angelina Weld Grimke and Anne Spencer. All of these are quite accessible but the anthology also includes some impenetrably difficult works by the renowned Gertrude Stein and lesser known figures like Mina Loy. This volume should be in the library of any serious American poet or student of poetry.

[Shawn Thrasher · Rating 5 out of 5]

Certainly not every poem or poet in this collection was my cup of tea, but I'm going to give it five stars anyway because: Poetry. I cherry picked a few phases, a few whole poems out of this anthology, so for that alone, I'm going to give it the big 5. Enter at your own risk, for you too may find a poem that sits and shines away in your mind, or nestles in your heart like a bird in a nest.

[Alison · Rating 5 out of 5]

Indispensable.

[Rose Knapp · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic anthology of well-known and lesser known women poets from the Modernist period. I’ve reread this many times.

[Mina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Love me some modernist women poets. I’m scared I think I’m turning into a poetryhead

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Came across this at Alexander Book Company, and had to have it. A fan of the lead editor (Robert Hass, himself a poet), as well as many of the poets anthologized here, I not only enjoyed reading this, but expect to enjoy reading it again and again, or more likely dipping into it here and there from time to time. If you are interested in poetry, modernism, or women in the late 19th and early 20th century, you might want to check this out.

[Jenny · Rating 5 out of 5]

I took TWO classes on Modern poetry in college and we spent a total of 1 class on H.D. No other women poets studied. If I could go back and rework my curriculum, this would be one of my textbooks. I started reading this last summer, got stuck on Stein because she blew my mind, had to return it to the library, and didn't get it again until now. Stein still blew my mind.