Poet Anna Wickham, a neglected figure in early 20th-century literature, is the subject of this biography. The book details her flight from her husband and sons to live with Natalie Clifford Barney in Paris, and her friendships with members of a literary circle that included D. H. Lawrence and Lawrence Durrell.
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Summary
Poet Anna Wickham, a neglected figure in early 20th-century literature, is the subject of this biography. The book details her flight from her husband and sons to live with Natalie Clifford Barney in Paris, and her friendships with members of a literary circle that included D. H. Lawrence and Lawrence Durrell.
Description
Poet Anna Wickham, a neglected figure in early 20th-century literature, is the subject of this biography. The book details her flight from her husband and sons to live with Natalie Clifford Barney in Paris, and her friendships with members of a literary circle that included D. H. Lawrence and Lawrence Durrell.
Critic Reviews
“Using interviews with the poet's family, her works, and what can be found of her correspondence, Jones crafts an engaging account of the trials and successes of Wickham's life.”
-- Bethany Towne Women's Review of Books
Jones has written a most striking and culturally informative biography of early twentieth-century poet Anna Wickham. Although she wrote in the rhymed iambic form of the time, Wickham's sentiments were feminist, free, and adventuresome. She was able to combine her 'wildness' with domesticity and the mothering of four sons, as well as acting as an inspiration to the artists around her. -- Joanne Kyger, Author of Again: Poems, 1989-2000 and As Ever: Selected Poems
This excellent, meticulously researched, and well-written biography is a fascinating account of how a talented and unconventional woman struggled to become a fresh, lively, poetic voice while establishing close and intriguing friendships with some of the period's significant literary and artistic figures. Jones' compelling study is a sympathetic and critically acute exploration of the life and work of this long overlooked poet. -- James G. Nelson, Professor Emeritus, University of Wisconsin, and author of Publisher to the Decadents: Leonard Smithers in the Careers of Bea
Anna Wickham is an authoritative and much-needed biography of a neglected poet. Jones skillfully weaves the narrative of Wickham's lonely childhood in Australia, a tempestuous marriage, and a vibrant poetic development with a social history spanning Edwardian England to the Second World War. We encounter a fascinating woman whose free spirit and self-doubt were in constant dialogue and conflict. This book also points us to Wickham’s invigorating poetry which was once internationally renowned. Like the poems, her life story will resonate with present day readers. -- Dr. Jane Dowson, Author of Women, Modernism, and British Poetry, 1910-1939 and Editor of Frances Cornford: Selected Poems
Jones has written an absorbing biography of the larger-than-life yet ultimately tragic Anna Wickham, which is detailed and affectionate. It tells of an inspired woman who escaped from a tyrannical marriage into literature and literary society, including the Anglo-American lesbian world of Natalie Barney. Furthermore, it throws light on a poet who nurtured and encouraged many young poets, among them Malcolm Lowry, Lawrence Durrell, and Dylan Thomas. Like all worthwhile biographies, the story also gives the reader a slice of literary history. It draws one into the intriguing life of a woman who had to overcome the prejudices of a stifling age in order to register as a truly independent spirit with an original poetic voice. -- Gordon Bowker, Author of Pursued by Furies: A Life of Malcolm Lowry and Through the Dark Labyrinth: A Biography of Lawrence Durrell
Anna Wickham is a carefully researched, critical biography of ‘a major woman’ whose poetry reveals the forces that shaped female artists from the early twentieth century through the World Wars and beyond. -- Phyllis Walsh, Editor and Publisher of Hummingbird Press, and Author of Lorine Niedecker: Solitary Player and River: A Haiku Sequence<
Jones does a good job not only of disclosing the initimate details of the poet's tragic life but also of interweaving her poems through the narrative and paying special attention to her writing techniques. -- Scott Hightower Library Journal
A Poe'ts Daring Life is a simply fascinating biograpical study and presentation enhanced with exclusive interviews with members of Anna Wickham's family and a newly discovered written corespondence. Bookwatch
A compelling, critically dextrous and long-overdue portrait of an important poet. -- Anne Pender Times Literary Supplement
About the Author
Jennifer Vaughan Jones (Ph.D. University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1994) is a professor whose seminal work, The Poetry and Place of Anna Wickham 1910-30, provides the first complete bibliography of Anna Wickham's work and contribution to literary modernism. This is her first book.
Anna Wickham's life is characterized by the turbulent, burgeoning feminism of the early 20th century. A woman whose incisive mind and inquisitive nature sent her husband into jealous rages, she was forcibly committed to a mental hospital at the age of 30. Upon her release, she began a life-long quest for happiness, exhibited first and foremost through her poetry. Anna Wickham became a widely acclaimed writer whose life, at times immersed in scandal, is a story of success and sadness. Eventually leaving her husband and four sons to live in Paris's left bank, she became a confidante of D.H. Lawrence, the long-time lover of millionairess Natalie Clifford Barney, and a strong-willed literary icon, rumored to have once thrown Dylan Thomas into a snowstorm. Despite her fame and achievement, Wickham's struggles with depression and anxiety would eventually lead to her untimely death.
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