Léonie Adams
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Léonie Fuller Adams (9 December 1899 – 27 June 1988) was an American poetess. She held the post of Poetry Consultant to the Library of Congress (now referred to as Poet Laureate) from 1948 – 1949.
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[edit] Life
She was born in Brooklyn, and raised in an unusually strict environment. She was not allowed on the subway until she was 18, and even then her father accompanied her. She studied at Barnard College where she was a contemporary and friend of Margaret Mead. While still an undergraduate, she showed remarkable skill as a poet, and at this time her poems began to be published. In 1924, she became the editor of The Measure.
1925 saw the publication of her first volume of poetry: Those Not Elect.
In the Spring of 1928, she had a brief affair with Edmund Wilson. Leonie apologized to Wilson for having "moped and quarreled" on the day she left for France. While in London, Leonie met H.D., who introduced her to several figures in the London literary scene; in Paris she was invited to tea by Gertrude Stein. At the beginning of 1929, when Wilson wrote to her that he was thinking of marrying another woman, Leonie wrote back that she had had a pregnancy and hinted that she had had a miscarriage, mentioning the need for a visit to a London doctor in October. Guilt over the pregnancy — both Wilson, and a former student, Judith Farr, reported that Leonie had a gift for making others feel guilty — combined with heavy drinking, and indecision in other elements of his personal life led Wilson to a nervous collapse. Louise Bogan later revealed to him that Leonie's preganacy had been imaginary, and this caused a temporary rift between Bogan and Adams.
In the 1930s, she lived in the Ramapo Mountains near Hillburn, New York and commuted to New York City to lecture on Victorian poetry at New York University.
She taught English at various colleges and universities including Douglass College (then known as the New Jersey College for Women), the University of Washington, the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, Columbia University, and Sarah Lawrence College. The poets for whom Adams acted as a mentor included Louise Glück.
In 1950, she received an honorary doctorate from the New Jersey College for Women.
Adams' Poems: A Selection won the 1954 Bollingen Prize. In a review of the book, Louise Bogan wrote: "Poems such as "Companions of the Morass," "For Harvest," "Grapes Making," and "The Runner with the Lots" spring from and are indications of a poetic endowment as deep as it is rare."
She died at the age of 88 in New Milford, Connecticut in 1988.
[edit] Poetic style
Superficially, Léonie Adams' style did not change greatly over her lifetime, but there was an initial shy wonder at the world (perhaps due to her strict upbringing) that eventually became an intense and almost devotional lyricism. Her rich descriptions demonstrate great delicacy of perception and an exalted spirit. She bears comparison with Henry Vaughan and 17th century metaphysical poetry, especially in her near-religious ecstasy.
[edit] Prizes and Awards
- 1954: the Bollingen Prize for Poems: A Selection (1954)
- 1974: Academy Fellowship from the Academy of American Poets
- the Shelley Memorial Award
- fellowship from The Guggenheim Foundation
- grants from The National Council of the Arts and The National Institute of Arts and Letters,
[edit] Works
- Those Not Elect, Robert M. McBride & Co, 1925
- High Falcon and Other Poems, John Day, New York, 1929.
- Midsummer, Ward Ritchie, 1929
- This Measure, 1933
- Poems: A selection, 1954
Adams contributed to:
- The Lyrics of Francois Villon, Limited Editions Club, New York, 1933
Poems appear in:
- Moore, Geoffrey (editor) The Penguin Book of Modern American Verse, Penguin Books, London, 1954.
- Untermeyer, Louis (editor) A Treasury of Great Poems.
[edit] References
- Dabney, Lewis M. '1929, A Turning Point' in Lewis M. Danbey (editor), Edmund Wilson: Centennial Reflections, Princeton University Press, 1997, ISBN 0691016712.
- Kunitz, Stanley, entry from Living Authors: A Book of Biographies Dilly Tante (editor), H. W. Wilson, New York, 1935 — see page 1.
- Lutkehaus, Nancy C., Margaret Mead and the 'Rustling-of-the-Wind-in-the-Palm-Tress School' of Autographic Writing, in Ruth Behar, Deborah A Gordon (editors) Women Writing Culture
- Untermeyer, Louis, (editor) A Treasury of Great Poems.
[edit] Notes
- ^ Untermeyer op. cit. page 512.
- ^ Lutkehaus op. cit. page 189.
- ^ Dabney op. cit. page 111.
- ^ Dabney op. cit. page 112; see also Colin Walters, 'Edmund Wilson, One Hundred Years On', in The Washington Times, 16 November 1997, page 6.
- ^ Dabney op. cit. page 119
- ^ Kunitz, op. cit.
- ^ Louise Gluck, 'The education of the poet' page 144 In E. Shelnutt (editor), The confidence woman (pp. 133-148).
- ^ see page 380, Louise Bogan, Selected Criticism: Prose, Poetry, Noonday Press, New York, 1955.
