Amy Lowell, American Modern

For decades, the work of one of America¡¦s most influential poets, 1925 Pulitzer Prize¡Vwinner Amy Lowell (1874¡V1925), has been largely overlooked. Cigar-smoker, Boston Brahmin, lesbian, impresario, entrepreneur, wildly popular lecturer, and best-selling poet, Lowell gave voice to an erotic, thoroughly American sensibility. She was a respected authority on modern poetry, forging the path that led to the works of Allen Ginsberg, May Sarton, Sylvia Plath, and beyond. Yet, since her death, her work has suffered critical neglect.

This volume presents the most sustained examination of this prolific poet to date. Essays by a transatlantic group of literary critics and scholars explore the varied contributions of Lowell as a woman poet, a modernist, and a significant force behind the literary debates of early twentieth-century poetics. In addition to placing Lowell in her proper historical context, contributors demonstrate her centrality to current critical and theoretical discussions. Amy Lowell, American Modern returns this influential poet to conversation and to literary history„owhere she belongs.