Amy Lawrence Lowell (February 9, 1874 – May 12, 1925) was an American poet of the
imagist
Imagism was a movement in early-20th-century Anglo-American poetry that favored precision of imagery and clear, sharp language. It is considered to be the first organized modernist literary movement in the English language. Imagism is someti ...
school, which promoted a return to classical values. She posthumously won the
Pulitzer Prize for Poetry
The Pulitzer Prize for Poetry is one of the seven American Pulitzer Prizes awarded annually for Letters, Drama, and Music. It was first presented in 1922, and is given for a distinguished volume of original verse by an American author, published ...
in 1926.
Life
Amy Lowell was born on February 9, 1874, in
Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
, Massachusetts, the daughter of
Augustus Lowell
Augustus Lowell (January 15, 1830 – June 22, 1900) was a wealthy Massachusetts industrialist, philanthropist, horticulturist, and civic leader. A member of the Brahmin Lowell family, he was born in Boston to John Amory Lowell and his secon ...
and Katherine Bigelow Lowell. A member of the
Brahmin
Brahmin (; sa, ब्राह्मण, brāhmaṇa) is a varna as well as a caste within Hindu society. The Brahmins are designated as the priestly class as they serve as priests (purohit, pandit, or pujari) and religious teachers (gur ...
Lowell family
The Lowell family is one of the Boston Brahmin families of New England, known for both intellectual and commercial achievements.
The family had emigrated to Boston from England in 1639, led by the patriarch Percival Lowle (1571–1665). The surn ...
, her siblings included the astronomer
Percival Lowell
Percival Lowell (; March 13, 1855 – November 12, 1916) was an American businessman, author, mathematician, and astronomer who fueled speculation that there were canals on Mars, and furthered theories of a ninth planet within the Solar System. ...
, the educator and legal scholar
Abbott Lawrence Lowell
Abbott Lawrence Lowell (December 13, 1856 – January 6, 1943) was an American educator and legal scholar. He was President of Harvard University from 1909 to 1933.
With an "aristocratic sense of mission and self-certainty," Lowell cut a large f ...
, and
Elizabeth Lowell Putnam, an early activist for prenatal care. They were the great-grandchildren of
John Lowell
John Lowell (June 17, 1743 – May 6, 1802) was a delegate to the Congress of the Confederation, a Judge of the Court of Appeals in Cases of Capture under the Articles of Confederation, a United States district judge of the United States Distr ...
and, on their mother's side, the grandchildren of
Abbott Lawrence.
School was a source of considerable despair for the young Amy Lowell. She considered herself to be developing "masculine" and "ugly" features and she was a social outcast. She had a reputation among her classmates for being outspoken and opinionated.
Lowell never attended college because her family did not consider it proper for a woman to do so. She compensated for this lack with avid reading and near-obsessive
book collecting. She lived as a socialite and travelled widely, turning to poetry in 1902 (aged 28) after being inspired by a performance of
Eleonora Duse in Europe. After beginning a career as a poet when she was well into her 30s, Lowell became an enthusiastic student and disciple of the art.
Lowell was said to be
lesbian, and in 1912 she and actress
Ada Dwyer Russell were reputed to be lovers. Russell is reputed to be the subject of Lowell's more erotic works, most notably the love poems contained in 'Two Speak Together', a subsection of ''Pictures of the Floating World''. The two women traveled to England together, where Lowell met
Ezra Pound, who at once became a major influence and a major critic of her work. Pound considered Lowell's embrace of Imagism to be a kind of hijacking of the movement. Lowell has been linked romantically to writer
Mercedes de Acosta
Mercedes de Acosta (March 1, 1892 – May 9, 1968) was an American poet, playwright, and novelist. Although she failed to achieve artistic and professional distinction, de Acosta is known for her many lesbian affairs with celebrated Broadway and ...
, but the only evidence of any contact between them is a brief correspondence about a planned memorial for Duse.
Lowell was a short but imposing figure who kept her hair in a bun and wore a
pince-nez
Pince-nez ( or , plural form same as singular; ) is a style of glasses, popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, that are supported without earpieces, by pinching the bridge of the nose. The name comes from French ''pincer'', "to pinch" ...
.
Lowell publicly smoked cigars, as newspapers of the day frequently mentioned. A glandular problem kept her perpetually overweight. Poet
Witter Bynner once said, in a comment frequently misattributed to
Ezra Pound, that she was a "hippopoetess". Her admirers defended her, however, even after her death. One rebuttal was written by
Heywood Broun in his obituary tribute to Amy. He wrote, "She was upon the surface of things a Lowell, a New Englander and a spinster. But inside everything was molten like the core of the earth ... Given one more gram of emotion, Amy Lowell would have burst into flame and been consumed to cinders."
Lowell died of a
cerebral hemorrhage in 1925, at the age of 51 and is buried at
Mount Auburn Cemetery. The following year, she was awarded the
Pulitzer Prize for Poetry
The Pulitzer Prize for Poetry is one of the seven American Pulitzer Prizes awarded annually for Letters, Drama, and Music. It was first presented in 1922, and is given for a distinguished volume of original verse by an American author, published ...
for ''What's O'Clock''. That collection included the patriotic poem "Lilacs", which
Louis Untermeyer said was the poem of hers he liked best.
Her first published work appeared in 1910 in ''
Atlantic Monthly''. The first published collection of her poetry, ''A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass'', appeared two years later, in 1912. An additional group of uncollected poems was added to the volume ''The Complete Poetical Works of Amy Lowell'', published in 1955 with an introduction by Untermeyer, who considered himself her friend.
Though she sometimes wrote
sonnets, Lowell was an early adherent to the "
free verse
Free verse is an open form of poetry, which in its modern form arose through the French '' vers libre'' form. It does not use consistent meter patterns, rhyme, or any musical pattern. It thus tends to follow the rhythm of natural speech.
Defi ...
" method of poetry and one of the major champions of this method. She defined it in her preface to "Sword Blades and Poppy Seed" in the ''North American Review'' for January 1917; in the closing chapter of "Tendencies in Modern American Poetry"; and also in ''The Dial'' (January 17, 1918), as: "The definition of
vers libre
Free verse is an open form of poetry, which in its modern form arose through the French '' vers libre'' form. It does not use consistent meter patterns, rhyme, or any musical pattern. It thus tends to follow the rhythm of natural speech.
Defini ...
is: a verse-formal based upon cadence. To understand vers libre, one must abandon all desire to find in it the even rhythm of metrical feet. One must allow the lines to flow as they will when read aloud by an intelligent reader. Or, to put it another way, unrhymed
cadence
In Western musical theory, a cadence (Latin ''cadentia'', "a falling") is the end of a phrase in which the melody or harmony creates a sense of full or partial resolution, especially in music of the 16th century onwards.Don Michael Randel (199 ...
is "built upon 'organic rhythm,' or the rhythm of the speaking voice with its necessity for breathing, rather than upon a strict metrical system. Free verse within its own law of
cadence
In Western musical theory, a cadence (Latin ''cadentia'', "a falling") is the end of a phrase in which the melody or harmony creates a sense of full or partial resolution, especially in music of the 16th century onwards.Don Michael Randel (199 ...
has no absolute rules; it would not be 'free' if it had."
Untermeyer writes that "She was not only a disturber but an awakener." In many poems, Lowell dispenses with line breaks, so that the work looks like prose on the page. This technique she labeled "polyphonic prose".
Throughout her working life, Lowell was a promoter of both contemporary and historical poets. Her book ''Fir-Flower Poets'' was a poetical re-working of literal translations of the works of ancient Chinese poets, notably
Li Tai-po (701–762). Her writing also included critical works on French literature. At the time of her death, she was attempting to complete her two-volume biography of
John Keats (work on which had long been frustrated by the noncooperation of
F. Holland Day, whose private collection of Keatsiana included
Fanny Brawne's letters to Frances Keats). Lowell wrote of Keats: "the stigma of oddness is the price a myopic world always exacts of genius."
Lowell published not only her own work, but also that of other writers. According to Untermeyer, she "captured" the Imagist movement from
Ezra Pound. Pound threatened to sue her for bringing out her three-volume series ''Some Imagist Poets'', and thereafter derisively called the American Imagists the "Amygist" movement. Pound criticized her as not an imagist, but merely a rich woman who was able to financially assist the publication of imagist poetry. She said that Imagism was weak before she took it up, whereas others said it became weak after Pound's "exile" towards
Vorticism
Vorticism was a London-based modernist art movement formed in 1914 by the writer and artist Wyndham Lewis. The movement was partially inspired by Cubism and was introduced to the public by means of the publication of the Vorticist manifesto in ...
.
Lowell wrote at least two poems about libraries—The "Boston Athenaeum" and "The Congressional Library"—during her career. A discussion of libraries also appears in her essay "Poetry, Imagination, and Education".
Relationship with Ada Dwyer Russell
Lowell's partner Ada Dwyer Russell was the subject of many of Lowell's romantic poems, and Lowell wanted to dedicate her books to Russell, but Russell would not allow that, and relented only once for Lowell's biography of
John Keats, in which Lowell wrote, "To A.D.R., This, and all my books. A.L." Examples of these love poems to Russell include ''the Taxi'', ''Absence'', ''A Lady''
[ Preface reprinted at th]
author's website
''In a Garden'', ''Madonna of the Evening Flowers'',
''Opal'', and ''Aubade''.
Lowell admitted to
John Livingston Lowes that Russell was the subject of her series of romantic poems titled "Two Speak Together". Lowell's poems about Russell have been called the most explicit and elegant lesbian love poetry during the time between the ancient
Sappho and poets of the 1970s.
Most of the private correspondence in the form of romantic letters between the two were destroyed by Russell at Lowell's request, leaving much unknown about the details of their life together.
Legacy
In the post-
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
years, Lowell was largely forgotten, but the
women's movement
The feminist movement (also known as the women's movement, or feminism) refers to a series of social movements and political campaigns for radical and liberal reforms on women's issues created by the inequality between men and women. Such is ...
in the 1970s and
women's studies
Women's studies is an academic field that draws on feminist and interdisciplinary methods to place women's lives and experiences at the center of study, while examining social and cultural constructs of gender; systems of privilege and oppress ...
brought her back to light. According to
Heywood Broun, however, Lowell personally argued against
feminism
Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that society prioritizes the male po ...
.
Additional sources of interest in Lowell today come from the
anti-war sentiment of the oft-taught poem "Patterns"; her
personification of inanimate objects, as in "The Green Bowl", and "The Red Lacquer Music Stand"; and her lesbian themes, including the love poems addressed to Ada Dwyer Russell in "Two Speak Together" and her poem "The Sisters", which addresses her female poetic predecessors.
Lowell's correspondence with her friend
Florence Ayscough, a writer and translator of Chinese literature, was compiled and published by Ayscough's husband Professor
Harley Farnsworth MacNair in 1945.
Works
*
Books
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
''Selected Poems of Amy Lowell'', ed. Melissa Bradshaw and Adrienne Munich, New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2002.
*
* (The Riverside Press, Cambridge), 1955.
*
*
*
Criticism
*
Anthology
*
Choral settings of poetry
* To a Friend, b
Giselle Wyers Santa Barbara Music Publishing, Inc.
* Sea Shell, b
Vicente Chavarria Santa Barbara Music Publishing, Inc.
* This Perfect Beauty, b
Jenni Brandon Santa Barbara Music Publishing, Inc.
* A Winter Ride, b
Misty L. Dupuis Earth Cadence Publishing.
* The Giver of Stars, b
Jenni Brandon Jenni Brandon Music.
* A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass, b
Dominick DiOrio Hal Leonard.
* A Sprig of Rosemary, b
Hal Leonard.
* Absence, b
Dominick DiOrio G. Schirmer.
* At Night, b
Jenni Brandon Jenni Brandon Music.
* You Are the Music, b
Victor C. Johnson Chorister's Guild.
* The Giver of Stars, b
Joan Szymko Independent Music Publishers Cooperative.
* You Are the Music, b
Joan Szymko Independent Music Publishers Cooperative.
See also
*
Amy Lowell Poetry Travelling Scholarship
The Amy Lowell Poetry Travelling Scholarship is given annually to a U.S.-born poet to spend one year outside North America in a country the recipient feels will most advance his or her work.
When poet Amy Lowell died in 1925, her will established ...
*
Lesbian Poetry
Notes
References
*''Amy Lowell, American Modern: Critical Essays'', ed. Adrienne Munich and Melissa Bradshaw, New Brunswick, NJ:Rutgers University Press, 2004.
*"Outselling the Modernisms of Men: Amy Lowell and the Art of Self-Commodification", ''Victorian Poetry'' Volume 38, No. 1 (Spring 2000), 141–169
*Rollyson, Carl, ''Amy Lowell Anew: A Biography'', Rowman & Littlefield Publisher, 2013. .
External links
*
*
*
Poems by Amy Lowell and biographyat
Poetry Foundation
The Poetry Foundation is an American literary society that seeks to promote poetry and lyricism in the wider culture. It was formed from ''Poetry'' magazine, which it continues to publish, with a 2003 gift of $200 million from philanthropist Ru ...
"How Does the New Poetry Differ from the Old?; Amy Lowell Laments the Lack of Authoritative Criticism in America – Says No One Should Make a Living by Writing" ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
''. March 26, 1916.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lowell, Amy
1874 births
1925 deaths
American socialites
Burials at Mount Auburn Cemetery
Imagists
American lesbian writers
LGBT people from Massachusetts
Modernist women writers
People from Brookline, Massachusetts
Pulitzer Prize for Poetry winners
American LGBT poets
American women poets
20th-century American women writers