The Second Book of Modern Verse · Chapter 14IV (4)
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Kreymborg, Alfred. [1883-1966] (2) Born in New York City and educated in the public schools of New York. Mr. Kreymborg was the founder and editor of a little magazine called `Others', which became the organ of a group of insurgent poets. Also under the title of "Others", he has issued at intervals selections from the work of these poets, forming a novel and interesting anthology. In addition to writing poetry which he has published in a collection called "Mushrooms", 1917, Mr. Kreymborg is the author of several brief poetic plays which he presents as "Poem-Mimes", performed by puppets.
Lee, Agnes (Mrs. Otto Freer). [1868-1939] (2) Born in Chicago, Ill. Educated in Switzerland. Married, 2d, Otto Freer, 1911. Author of "The Round Rabbit", 1898; "The Border of the Lake", 1910; "The Sharing", 1914; translator of the poems of Theophile Gautier, and of "The Gates of Childhood", by Fernand Gregh. A contributor of poems to the leading magazines, particularly `Poetry', of Chicago.
Lee, Muna. [1895-1965] (1) Miss Lee spent her early life in Oklahoma, and first came into notice as a poet by gaining a prize given by `Poetry', of Chicago, for the best lyric verse by a young writer. She afterward came to New York and married Luis Marin, of South America. Is at present living in Porto Rico; has not, as yet, published a volume of poetry.
Ledoux, Louis V. [1880-1948] (3) Born in New York City, June 6, 1880. Educated at Columbia University where he graduated in 1902. He is a poet who writes chiefly upon Greek themes and is the author of "Songs from the Silent Land", 1905; "The Soul's Progress", 1907; "Yzdra: A Poetic Drama", 1909; "The Shadow of Aetna", 1914; "The Story of Eleusis: A Lyrical Drama", 1916.
Leonard, William Ellery. [1876-1944] (2) Born at Plainfield, N.J., Jan. 25, 1876. A.B. Boston University, 1898; A.M. Harvard, 1899. Fellow of Boston University in philology and literature, 1900; student University of Gottingen, 1901; University of Bonn, 1902; fellow of Columbia University, 1902-03; Ph.D. Columbia, 1904. After receiving these various degrees, Mr. Leonard began his work as Instructor of Latin at Boston University, going from there to the University of Wisconsin where he has remained continuously since 1906, as Assistant Professor of English. He has written extensively on classic subjects, in addition to his work in poetry, and has also published volumes in the field of literary criticism. His best-known works are: "Byron and Byronism in America", 1905; "Sonnets and Poems", 1906; "The Fragments of Empedocles", 1908; "The Poet of Galilee", 1909; "The Vaunt of Man", 1912; "Glory of the Morning", a play, 1912; "Aesop and Hyssop", 1913. Mr. Leonard has also made a remarkable blank-verse translation of Lucretius, which was published in 1916, and has translated from the Greek and the German.
Lindsay, Vachel. [1879-1931] (4) Born in Springfield, Ill., Nov. 10, 1879. Educated at Hiram College, Ohio. His first intention was to enter the field of art and he became a student at the Art Institute of Chicago where he remained from 1900 to 1903, continuing his work at the New York School of Art, 1904-05, under the personal instruction of Wm. Chase and Robert Henri. For a time after his technical study, he lectured upon art in its practical relation to the community, and returning to his home in Springfield, Ill., issued what might be termed his manifesto in the shape of "The Village Magazine", divided about equally between prose articles pertaining to the beautifying of his native city, and poems, illustrated by his own drawings. Both the verse and drawings showed a delightful imagination; the poetry in particular, unlike the more elaborate technique of his later work, had a Blake-like simplicity. Soon after the publication of "The Village Magazine", Mr. Lindsay, taking as scrip for the journey, "Rhymes to be Traded for Bread", made a pilgrimage on foot through several Western States, going as far afield as New Mexico. The story of this journey is given in his volume, "Adventures While Preaching the Gospel of Beauty", 1916. Mr. Lindsay had taken an earlier journey on foot, from Jacksonville, Fla., to Springfield, Ill., which he has recorded in "A Handy Guide for Beggars", also 1916. This is much the finer volume of the two and should take its place with the permanent literature of vagabondage. In 1913 Mr. Lindsay came into wide notice by his poem, "General William Booth Enters into Heaven", which became the title poem of his first volume of verse, published in 1913. This was followed by "The Congo", 1914; "The Chinese Nightingale", 1917; and "Golden Whales of California", 1920. He based all his later work upon the idea of poetry as a spoken art and developed it along the line of rhythm. His work is unique, he adhered to no "school", nor has he found imitators. He rendered his own work so as to bring out all of its rhythmic possibilities and became quite as well known for his interpretations of his work as for the work itself. Much of his verse is social in appeal, but he was at his best in poems of more imaginative beauty, such as "The Chinese Nightingale".
Lowell, Amy. [1874-1925] (5) Born in Brookline, Mass., Feb. 9, 1874. Educated at private schools. Author of "A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass", 1912; "Sword Blades and Poppy Seed", 1914; "Men, Women and Ghosts", 1916; "Can Grande's Castle", 1918; "Pictures of the Floating World", 1919. Editor of the three successive collections of "Some Imagist Poets", 1915, '16, and '17, containing the early work of the "Imagist School" of which Miss Lowell became the leader. This movement, of which we have spoken in the notes upon the work of "H. D." and John Gould Fletcher, originated in England, the idea having been first conceived by a young poet named T. E. Hulme, but developed and put forth by Ezra Pound in an article called "Don'ts by an Imagist", which appeared in `Poetry; A Magazine of Verse'. As previously stated, a small group of poets gathered about Mr. Pound, experimenting along the technical lines suggested, and a cult of "Imagism" was formed, whose first group-expression was in the little volume, "Des Imagistes", published in New York in April, 1914. Miss Lowell did not come actively into the movement until after that time, but once she had entered it, she became its leader, and it was chiefly through her effort in America that the movement attained so much prominence and so influenced the trend of poetry for the years immediately succeeding. Miss Lowell many times, in admirable articles, stated the principles upon which Imagism is based, notably in the Preface to "Some Imagist Poets" and in the Preface to the second series, in 1916. She also elaborated it much more fully in her volume, "Tendencies in Modern American Poetry", 1917, in the articles pertaining to the work of "H. D." and John Gould Fletcher. In her own creative work, however, Miss Lowell did most to establish the possibilities of the Imagistic idea and of its modes of presentation, and opened up many interesting avenues of poetic form. Her volume, "Can Grande's Castle", is devoted to work in the medium which she styled "Polyphonic Prose" and contains some of her finest work, particularly "The Bronze Horses". [Amy Lowell won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1926 (posthumous) for "What's O'Clock". — A. L., 1998.]
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) <also O'Sheel> 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.