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Biography
Born into the powerful Lowell family of Massachusetts,
Amy Lowell chose not to become a complacent Lowell wife but
to live up to the challenges of her most prominent male ancestors.
With the help of her family's extensive library, she was
primarily self-taught. She published her first book of poetry
in 1912, when she was thirty-eight; the book was well-reviewed
and became a popular success. In 1913, the new and influential
journal Poetry published some Imagist poems by H.
D., and Lowell was so struck by H. D.'s lyrical approach
that she decided to use her social prominence to promote
the Imagist movement. She traveled to England to meet the
writers, edited several Imagist anthologies, and published
two books of criticism that offered positive endorsements.
Not surprisingly, Lowell's own poetry was influenced by Imagism,
as seen in such collections as Sword Blades and Poppy
Seed (1914), Men, Women, and Ghosts (1916), Can
Grande's Castle (1918), Pictures of the Floating World (1919),
and Legends (1921).
Explorations
Remembered better in the literary histories for her advancement
of Imagist and early Modernist aesthetics than for her own
poetry, Lowell left behind a body of verse with which we
are just beginning to engage. Now that criticism seems to
be moving beyond dismissing poems and poets for "accessibility," and
perhaps also beyond exclusively political readings, we can
ask questions about Lowell which help to distinguish her
work amid the vast trove of Modernist poetry. 1. Are there themes and motifs in Lowell, or ways of
seeing, which make her a New England poet, in the tradition
of Emerson and Dickinson? St.
Louis (1927) is full of New England reverie; begin
there, and then look at other Lowell poems (e.g., The
Captured Goddess [1914] and Meeting-House Hill [1925]),
and see if you notice echoes or suggestions of Emerson
and Dickinson. If so, where?
2. The title New Heavens for Old (1927) plays
with a phrase in a familiar fairy tale. What is it? Why
give this title to the poem? What mood does it establish?
3. Is the closing of New Heavens for Old unrelievedly
dark? Some lines in the poem suggest Whitman.
Do Whitman's spirit and ethos touch the ending of the poem
as well? If so, how?
Other sites to consult:
Amy
Lowell. A biography of Lowell, eleven poems,
and a bibliography on the Lesbian Poetry site.
Harvard
Magazine's Amy Lowell article. In this
piece David Beardsley provides an overview of the
woman once described as "not only poetical but
the cause of poetry in others."
Men,
Women and Ghosts: The Life of Amy Lowell.
Part of the Modernism: The American Salons site
at Case Western Reserve University. Looks particularly
at Lowell's Imagist poems and the ways in which they
were influenced by the visual arts and music. Also
features a bibliography, three poems, and a list
of quality Lowell links.
Petals
on a Wet Black Bough: American Modernist Writers
and the Orient. An excellent exhibit from
the Yale University Beinecke Library that looks at
the influence of Chinese and Japanese culture on
the poetry of Lowell and her contemporaries. Lowell's
brother Percival's book The Soul of Japan was
highly influential and helped spawn interest in the
newly "opened" cultures. http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/g_l/amylowell/lowell.htm:
Modern American Poetry’s Amy Lowell page.
http://www.poets.org/poets/poets.cfm?prmID=448&CFID=9020342&CFTOKEN=13372336:
Amy Lowell information from the Academy of American Poets.
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