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The Second Book of Modern Verse
J >> Jessie B. Rittenhouse >> The Second Book of Modern Verse Pages: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12
Masters, Edgar Lee. [1869-1950] (2)
Born Garnett, Kan., Aug. 23, 1869. Educated at Knox College, Ill.
He studied law in his father's office and was admitted to the bar in 1891.
Married Helen M. Jenkins, of Chicago, in 1898. Mr. Masters wrote
several volumes of verse and several poetic dramas, which are now
out of print, before he found himself in the "Spoon River Anthology",
published first in `Reedy's Mirror' and in book form in 1915. This volume,
written in free verse and containing about two hundred brief sketches,
or posthumous confessions, shows Mr. Masters to be a psychologist
of the keenest penetration, a satirist and humorist, laying bare unsparingly
the springs of human weakness, but seeing with an equal insight
humanity's finer side. "Spoon River Anthology", which had perhaps
a wider recognition than that of any volume of verse of the period,
was followed by "Songs and Satires", 1916; "The Great Valley", 1916;
"Toward the Gulf", 1917; and "Starved Rock", 1920.
Middleton, Scudder. [1888-1959] (2)
Born in New York City, Sept. 9, 1888. Educated at Columbia University.
Was connected for several years with the publishing firm
of The Macmillan Company. Mr. Middleton is the author of
"Streets and Faces", 1917, and "The New Day", 1919.
Millay, Edna St. Vincent. [1892-1950] (3)
Born at Camden, Maine, and educated at Vassar College.
Before entering college, however, when she was but nineteen years of age,
she wrote the poem, "Renascence", entered in the prize contest
of "The Lyric Year", a poem showing a remarkable imagination
in so young a writer. After leaving college Miss Millay came to New York
and became associated with the Provincetown Players for whom she wrote
several one-act plays in which she herself acted the leading part.
Her plays have also been produced by other companies and have attracted
the attention of critics, particularly the poetic drama, "Aria da Capo", 1920.
Miss Millay is one of our most gifted young poets. Her volumes of verse
to date are: "Renascence, and Other Poems", 1917, and "Poems", 1920.
[Edna St. Vincent Millay won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1923
for "The Ballad of the Harp-Weaver", &c. -- A. L., 1998.]
Monroe, Harriet. [1860-1936] (2)
Born in Chicago. Graduated at Visitation Academy, Georgetown, D.C.,
March, 1891. Miss Monroe was chosen to write the ode
for the dedication of the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1892.
After some years in literary work, chiefly as an art critic,
Miss Monroe founded, in October of 1912, `Poetry; A Magazine of Verse',
an organ which has done much to stimulate interest in poetry
and also its production, since it has become the recognized vehicle
for the work of the newer school. The first "Imagist" poems
appeared in its pages and it was the first to print the work
of Carl Sandburg and other well-known poets of the poetic revival.
Miss Monroe is the author of "Valeria and Other Poems", 1892;
"The Passing Show, Modern Plays in Verse", 1903; "You and I", 1914,
and was co-editor, with Alice Corbin Henderson, of "The New Poetry",
an anthology, 1917.
Morgan, Angela. [1873/74-1957] (2)
Born in Washington, D.C. Educated by private tutors, the public schools,
and by special University courses. Miss Morgan entered the journalistic field
while still a young girl and did very brilliant work
on papers of Chicago and New York. Her work covered all phases of life
from those of society to the slums. She visited police courts, jails,
and all places where humanity suffers and struggles, and it was no doubt
her early work in the newspaper field that gave to her later work,
both in poetry and fiction, its strong social bias. Probably no poet
of the present time responds more keenly to the social needs of the period,
nor has a keener sense of the opportunity for service. Miss Morgan
was one of the delegates to the First International Congress of Women,
at The Hague, during the first year of the war, and has appeared frequently
in readings from her own work. Her volumes of verse are
"The Hour Has Struck", 1914; "Utterance and Other Poems", 1916;
"Forward, March", 1918; and "Hail, Man", 1919. She has also published
a volume of stories under the title "The Imprisoned Splendor".
Morton, David. [1886-1957] (3)
Born in Elkton, Ky., Feb. 21, 1886. Educated in the public schools
of Louisville, Ky., and at Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tenn.,
where he graduated with the degree of B.S. in 1909. Mr. Morton
first took up journalism and was reporter and associate editor of various
Southern periodicals up to 1915, when he entered the teaching profession
as Professor of English at the Boys' High School of Louisville.
He is now teacher of History and English at the Morristown High School,
Morristown, N.J. In 1919 Mr. Morton took the first prize, of $150,
for the best poem read at the Poetry Society of America
during the current year, and in 1920 he was awarded a $500 prize
for one of three book manuscripts considered the best submitted
to the contest of "The Lyric Society". The volume, "Ships in Harbor,
and Other Poems", will be published in the autumn of 1920.
Mr. Morton is one of the finest sonneteers of this period
and a poet of rare and authentic gifts.
Neihardt, John G. [1881-1973] (1)
Born at Sharpsburg, Ill., Jan. 8, 1881. Removed in his early boyhood
to Bancroft, Neb., his present home. He has made a special study
of the pioneer life of the West and also of the Indian life,
having spent some time among the Omaha Indians. His work has
great virility and sweep and he has a fine gift of narrative.
His first volume, "A Bundle of Myrrh", 1908, showed unmistakably
that a new poet had appeared in the West. This was followed
by the lyric collections, "Man-Song", 1909; "The Stranger at the Gate", 1912;
and "The Quest", 1916. Mr. Neihardt then turned his attention
to the writing of a trilogy of narrative poems, each devoted
to some character identified with the pioneer life of the Far West.
"The Song of Hugh Glass", 1915, and "The Song of Three Friends", 1919,
have thus far been published. The material used by Mr. Neihardt
is not only romantic and picturesque, but valuable in the historical sense
and he is able to shape it with dramatic imagination.
Norton, Grace Fallow. [1876-?] (1)
Born at Northfield, Minn., Oct. 29, 1876. Author of
"Little Gray Songs from St. Joseph's", 1912; "The Sister of the Wind", 1914;
"Roads", 1915; and "What is Your Legion?", 1916.
O'Brien, Edward Joseph. [1890-1941] (2)
Born in Boston, Mass., Dec. 10, 1890. Educated at Boston College
and Harvard University. Author of "White Fountains", 1917;
"The Forgotten Threshold", 1918. Editor of "The Masque of Poets", 1918.
Since 1915 Mr. O'Brien has been editing a collection of
"The Best Short Stories" of the current season.
O'Conor, Norreys Jephson. [1885-1958] (2)
Born in New York City, Dec. 31, 1885. Was educated at Harvard University
where he took the degrees of A.B. and A.M., making a special study
of the Gaelic language and literature in which he has also done
some valuable research work. Having, through his own Celtic descent,
a particular interest in Ireland and its literature, and having spent
a part of his time in that country, Mr. O'Conor's poetry naturally turns
upon Celtic themes which have inspired some excellent dramatic
as well as lyric work from his pen. His volumes in their order are:
"Celtic Memories", 1914; "Beside the Blackwater", 1915; "The Fairy Bride:
A Play in Three Acts", 1916; and "Songs of the Celtic Past", 1918.
O'Hara, John Myers. [1870-1944] (3)
Born at Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Educated at Northwestern University,
Evanston, Ill. Was admitted to the bar and practiced law in Chicago
for twelve years, when he gave up this profession and came to New York
to become a stock-broker. Although Mr. O'Hara has followed
this exacting occupation for the past ten years, it has not prevented him
from writing and publishing several volumes of poetry,
largely classic in theme, and handled with an adequate and beautiful art.
"The Poems of Sappho", 1907, built upon the authentic fragments,
are acknowledged to be among the finest in English literature.
Mr. O'Hara's other volumes comprise: "Songs of the Open", 1909;
"Pagan Sonnets", 1910; "The Ebon Muse", 1912; "Manhattan", 1915;
and "Threnodies", 1918.
O Sheel, Shaemas. [1886-1954] (1)
Born in New York City, Sept. 19, 1886. Educated at Columbia University.
His two volumes of verse are: "The Blossomy Bough", 1911,
and "The Light Feet of Goats", 1915. Mr. O Sheel is a true poet,
writing in the Celtic tradition.
Oppenheim, James. [1882-1932] (3)
Born at St. Paul, Minn., May 24, 1882, but a resident of New York City,
where he has spent most of his life. He was educated at Columbia University
and first entered sociological work, becoming assistant head worker
at the Hudson Guild Settlement, 1901-03. Married Lucy Seckel,
of New York, June, 1905. Was teacher and acting superintendent
of the Hebrew Technical School for Girls, New York, 1905-07,
when he left to engage entirely in literary work. Mr. Oppenheim
is a well-known short-story writer and novelist as well as poet,
but we will confine ourselves to listing his work in poetry,
which has in itself been voluminous. Since his first collection,
"Monday Morning and Other Poems", 1909, his work has been written
chiefly in free verse, or in "polyphonic poetry", to use his own term,
usually in sweeping rhythms more akin to those of Whitman than to the later
free-verse writers. In spirit, too, he has the Whitman mood, or rather,
he is absorbed by the same great social and democratic aspects of life.
Few poets see life so broadly as Mr. Oppenheim or look as deeply
below its surface; his work, however, is beset technically
by the danger that attends a poet who works in a semi-prose medium,
and the art is not always commensurate with the thought.
Mr. Oppenheim's other volumes of verse are: "Pioneers", a poetic play, 1910;
"Songs for the New Age", 1914; "War and Laughter", 1916;
"The Book of Self", 1917; "The Solitary", 1919.
Peabody, Josephine Preston (Mrs. Lionel Marks). [1874-1922] (3)
Born in New York City. Educated at the Girls' Latin School of Boston
and at Radcliffe College. Miss Peabody was Instructor of English
at Wellesley College from 1901 to 1903. Her volumes in their order are:
"The Wayfarers", 1898; "Fortune and Men's Eyes", 1900;
"Marlowe, a Drama", 1901; "The Singing Leaves", 1903; "The Wings", 1905;
"The Piper", a drama, awarded the Stratford-on-Avon Prize of $1500 in 1910;
"The Singing Man", 1911; "The Wolf of Gubbio", a drama, 1913;
and "The Harvest Moon", 1916. Miss Peabody's charming play, "The Piper",
first produced at Stratford, was played also in New York
at the Century Theater, having a successful run, and was revived
in the winter of 1920 by the Drama League. Miss Peabody was a poet
of a very delicate and individual art, whether in lyric or drama.
Percy, William Alexander. [1885-1942] (1)
Born in Greenville, Miss., May 14, 1885. Was prepared for college
chiefly by a Roman Catholic priest; went to the University of the South,
at Sewanee, Tenn., where he received his B.A. degree.
The next year he spent abroad, and the following entered
Harvard Law School, where he took the degree of LL.B.
He is now in the active practice of law in Greenville, Miss.
His first book of poems, "Sappho in Levkas and Other Poems",
was published in 1915, and his second, "In April Once", in 1920.
During the World War, Mr. Percy had active service in France,
having the rank of Captain.
Piper, Edwin Ford. [1871-1939] (1)
Born at Auburn, Neb., Feb. 8, 1871. Spent his early youth on a farm
near his native town and in various parts of the cattle country of the State.
Took his degree of A.B. from the University of Nebraska in 1897
and of A.M. in 1900, and later took graduate-student work at Harvard.
Mr. Piper was Instructor in English at the University of Nebraska
from 1899 to 1903, when he went to Harvard, and returned to the University
in the same capacity for the two years following, when he entered upon
the same position at the University of Iowa, where he still remains.
He has published but one collection of verse, "Barbed Wire",
a volume dealing with life in the West, though he appears frequently
in the magazines.
Rice, Cale Young. [1872-1943] (4)
Born at Dixon, Ky., Dec. 7, 1872. Graduated from Cumberland University
in 1893 and from Harvard University in 1895, where he remained to take
the degree of A.M. in 1896. He is the author of many fine poetic dramas,
some of which have had successful stage presentation,
and of several volumes of lyric poetry. In poetic drama his best-known works
are "Charles di Tocca", 1903; "David", 1904; "Yolanda of Cyprus", 1905;
"A Night in Avignon", 1907; "The Immortal Lure", 1911; and "Porzia", 1913.
Of late Mr. Rice has confined himself chiefly to lyric poetry,
covering a wide range of subjects, since he has traveled extensively
and finds inspiration for his work in the beauty of far countries
and their philosophies, as well as in the more familiar life about him.
His best-known lyric collections are: "Nirvana Days", 1908;
"Many Gods", 1910; "Far Quests", 1912; "At the World's Heart", 1914;
"Earth and New Earth", 1916; "Trails Sunward", 1917;
"Wraiths and Realities", 1918; "Songs to A. H. R.", 1918;
and "Shadowy Thresholds", 1919. With the exception of the last five titles,
Mr. Rice's work, both in lyric and drama, may be found
in his two volumes of "Collected Plays and Poems", 1915.
Robinson, Corinne Roosevelt. [1861-1933] (2)
Born in New York City in 1861. Educated by private teachers,
and at Miss Comstock's School in New York, supplemented by
a short period of study in Dresden. Married Douglas Robinson, 1882.
Mrs. Robinson, who is a sister to Col. Theodore Roosevelt,
has always taken an active part in philanthropic and political affairs,
and, since her brother's death, has given much of her time
to speaking upon his life and work, in the interest of Americanization.
Mrs. Robinson has written several volumes of verse:
"The Call of Brotherhood", 1912; "One Woman to Another", 1914;
and "Service and Sacrifice", 1919. All show the fine ideals
and gracious spirit of their writer.
Robinson, Edwin Arlington. [1869-1935] (3)
Born at Head Tide, Maine, Dec. 22, 1869. Educated at Harvard University.
Mr. Robinson is a psychological poet of great subtlety;
his poems are usually studies of types and he has given us
a remarkable series of portraits. He is recognized
as one of the finest and most distinguished poets of our time.
His successive volumes are: "Children of the Night", 1897;
"Captain Craig", 1902; "The Town Down the River", 1910;
"The Man Against the Sky", 1916; "Merlin", 1917; and "Launcelot", 1920.
The last-named volume was awarded a prize of five hundred dollars,
given by The Lyric Society for the best book manuscript offered to it in 1919.
In addition to his work in poetry, Mr. Robinson has written two prose plays,
"Van Zorn", and "The Porcupine".
[Edwin Arlington Robinson won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1922
for "Collected Poems", in 1925 for "The Man Who Died Twice",
and in 1928 for "Tristram". -- A. L., 1998.]
Sandburg, Carl. [1878-1967] (4)
Born at Galesburg, Ill., Jan. 6, 1878. Educated at Lombard College,
Galesburg. Married Lillian Steichen, of Milwaukee, 1908.
Mr. Sandburg served several years as secretary to the Mayor of Milwaukee,
then went to Chicago where he became associate editor of `System',
leaving this magazine to become an editorial writer
upon the `Chicago Daily News'. He first came into prominence
by a poem on "Chicago" published in `Poetry', of that city,
and was awarded the Levinson Prize for this poem, in 1914.
The following year he published a collection of his verse
under the title of "Chicago Poems", and in 1918 appeared
his second volume, "Corn Huskers". This was one of two volumes to receive
the Columbia University award of $500 for the best book of verse of the year.
Mr. Sandburg belongs to the newer movement in poetry,
using the `vers-libre' forms. He is a writer of rugged power,
interested in the social aspects of modern life, but a poet
who is also sensitive to beauty and a frequent master of the magic phrase.
[Carl Sandburg won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1919 for "Corn Huskers",
and in 1951 for his "Complete Poems". (Same as the Columbia University Prize
listed above.) -- A. L., 1998.]
Schauffler, Robert Haven. [1879-1964] (2)
Born at Brun, Austria, though of American parentage, on April 8, 1879.
He studied at Northwestern University, but took his degree of A.B.
from Princeton, in 1902, and afterwards spent a year in study
at the University of Berlin. Mr. Schauffler was a musician before he
took up literature and was a pupil of several famous masters of the 'cello.
He has written upon musical subjects, notably in his volume,
"The Musical Amateur", and in his delightful account
of his musical experiences in the Army, "Fiddler's Luck", 1920.
He is also the author of several books of travel, such as "Romantic Germany",
and "Romantic America", but it was with his poem, "Scum o' the Earth",
published in one of the magazines in 1912, that he first came into prominence
as a poet. As its name implies, it is a poem taking up the question
of America's debt to the immigrant, and looking at it
with the vision of the poet. This poem furnished the title
to Mr. Schauffler's collection of verse, published in 1912.
Seeger, Alan. [1888-1916] (1)
Born in New York City, June 22, 1888. He spent his childhood
upon Staten Island, where he was constantly in sight of
the great steamships of all nations moving in and out of New York Harbor --
the gateway to the Western Hemisphere. Returning to Manhattan,
he was sent to the Horace Mann School, but while still a lad,
the family removed to Mexico where the most impressionable years
of his boyhood were spent. The influence of the romantic Southern life
is shown in his earliest poetry. Upon his return to America,
several years later, he was prepared for college at the Hackley School
at Tarrytown, N.Y., and entered Harvard in 1906, where he remained to graduate
in 1910. Then followed a period of indecision as to his future work,
a period of two years spent in New York, seeking some adequate outlet
for the gifts which he seemed unable to bring to a practical issue.
Finally, his family decided to give him a period in Paris,
and he had been living there, with excursions to other parts of the Old World,
for nearly two years when the Great War broke out and furnished him
with the incentive to high adventure which his spirit craved.
He enlisted at once and was enrolled in the Foreign Legion
which was soon sent to the front. For two years he played not only
a gallant part as a soldier, but, as his letters and journal show,
he developed personal qualities of the noblest. Indeed no dedication
made by youth to the ideal of the war was more complete than his.
During his period with the Legion he wrote the poems by which
he will be remembered, "Champagne, 1914", "Ode to the American Volunteers
Fallen for France", and his exquisite "Rendezvous",
published in this collection. All are beautiful and all have the exaltation
which marked the soldier's spirit in the earlier years of the war.
Not only did his poems foreshadow his own death, but they showed
the willingness, almost eagerness, with which he offered himself.
Although America was not yet in the war, a tardiness which had been
a great grief to Alan Seeger, there is a poetic coincidence in the fact
that he met his death on July 4, 1916, while the Legion was carrying out
an attack on the little village of Belloy-en-Santerre. After his death
two volumes, containing his poems, letters, and diary, were issued, 1917,
with an Introduction by William Archer.
Shanafelt, Clara. [?] (1)
Miss Shanafelt has, as yet, published no collection of poetry,
but has appeared in the magazines, particularly `Poetry', of Chicago,
from whose pages we took the lyric included in this volume.
Shepard, Odell. [1884-1967] (1)
Born in Sterling, Ill., July 22, 1884. Educated at Harvard University.
Is now instructor in the English department of Yale University.
He is the author of "A Lonely Flute", 1917.
Smith, May Riley. [1842-1927] (1)
Born in Rochester, N.Y., May 7, 1842. Educated at Tracey Female Institute,
Rochester, and at Brockport, N.Y., Collegiate Institute.
Married Albert Smith, of Springfield, Ill., in 1869.
Author of "The Gift of Gentians", 1882; "The Inn of Rest", 1888;
"Sometime and Other Poems", 1892. While Mrs. Smith has in recent years
done work much more modern in character and finer as poetry,
she is most widely known for her poem, "Sometime", written in
her earlier life.
Speyer, Leonora. [1872-1956] (2)
Born in Washington, D.C., in 1872. Studied music in Brussels, Paris,
and Leipzig, and played the violin professionally under Nikisch, Seidl,
and others. Married Sir Edgar Speyer, of London, and lived in that city
until 1915, when they came to America and took up their residence in New York.
Lady Speyer, who had never written poetry until her return
to her native country, has since that time made for herself
a place among the newer group and is doing excellent work
both in the free forms and lyric.
[Leonora Speyer won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1927
for "Fiddlers Farewell". -- A. L., 1998.]
Sterling, George. [1869-1926] (3)
Born at Sag Harbor, N.Y., Dec. 1, 1869. Educated at private schools
and at St. Charles College, Ellicott City, Md. Mr. Sterling is a poet
to whom the sublimer aspects of nature and thought appeal
and he has a style admirably suited to their portrayal.
He is the author of "The Testimony of the Suns", 1903;
"A Wine of Wizardry", 1908; "The House of Orchids", 1911;
"Beyond the Breakers", 1914; "Exposition Ode", 1915;
and "Lilith, A Dramatic Poem", 1919.
Stork, Charles Wharton. [1881-1971] (2)
Born in Philadelphia, Pa., Feb. 12, 1881. Took the degree of A.B.
at Haverford College, 1902; of A.M. at Harvard, 1903, and of Ph.D.
at the University of Pennsylvania, 1905. He then went abroad
to do research work in the universities of England and Germany,
where he spent several years. In 1908 he married Elisabeth,
daughter of Franz von Pausinger, artist, of Salzburg, Austria,
and, returning to America, took up his work at the University of Pennsylvania,
where he remained as instructor and associate professor until 1916,
when he resigned to engage in literary work. Mr. Stork's first book of verse
to become known was "Sea and Bay", 1916. Since then he has done
a great deal of translating from the Swedish and German,
having made admirable renderings of Gustaf Froding, 1916,
as well as many other Swedish poets, whose work he published
in an "Anthology of Swedish Lyrics", 1917. He has since made
a translation of "Selected Poems of Verner Von Heidenstam",
the Nobel Prize winner of 1916. In addition to his work in Swedish poetry,
he has made an excellent rendering of the lyrics of Hofmansthal,
the Austrian poet. Mr. Stork is the editor and owner of `Contemporary Verse',
devoted to the poetry of the present group in America.
A second collection of his own verse will soon appear.
Teasdale, Sara. [1884-1933] (4)
Born in St. Louis, Mo., Aug. 10, 1884. Educated at private schools.
Married Ernst B. Filsinger, 1915. She is the author of "Sonnets to Duse",
1907; "Helen of Troy and Other Poems", 1911; "Rivers to the Sea", 1915;
"Love Songs", 1917, which was awarded the Columbia University Prize of $500
for the best book of poems of the current year. Miss Teasdale was also
the editor of "The Answering Voice; A Hundred Love Lyrics by Women", 1917.
She herself wrote some of the finest love songs of our period
and was one of the purest and most spontaneous lyric poets of her generation.
[Sara Teasdale won the first Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1918
for "Love Songs". (Same as the Columbia University Prize listed above.)
-- A. L., 1998.]
Tietjens, Eunice. [1884-1944] (1)
Born in Chicago, Ill., July 29, 1884. Educated in Europe,
chiefly at Geneva, Dresden, and Paris. Married Paul Tietjens, musician,
in 1904. Was divorced in 1914, and in 1920 married Cloyd Head, of Chicago.
Was for several years associate editor of `Poetry'. Mrs. Tietjens
has traveled extensively, especially in the interior of China. She also spent
sixteen months in France as a war correspondent for the Chicago Daily News.
Mrs. Tietjens is the author of "Profiles from China", 1917,
and "Body and Raiment", 1919.
Torrence, Ridgely. [1875-1950] (2)
Born at Xenia, Ohio, Nov. 27, 1875. Educated at Miami University, Ohio,
and at Princeton. Served as assistant librarian at
the Astor and Lenox Libraries in New York City from 1897 to 1903.
His volumes of poetry and poetic drama include:
"The House of a Hundred Lights", 1900; "El Dorado, A Tragedy", 1903;
"Abelard and Heloise: A Drama", 1907. Since Mr. Torrence published
his last collection, he has done some of his finest work
in lyric and narrative poetry, work that has appeared in the magazines
and which will probably be collected soon into book form.
He is a poet of vision, one of the truest voices of our day,
though his work is sparse in output.
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