CATEGORIES
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- Amy Lowell
Pulitzer Prize Winning Poet (1926)
1918 Typed Letter Signed
with Good Literary Content
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 LOWELL,
Amy (1874-1925). American Poet of the Imaginist School, Pulitzer
Prize Winner (1926, Posthumously). Good Literary Content Typed
Letter Signed, one page, quarto, personal imprinted letterhead,
November 6, 1918, Brookline, Massachusetts. Reads in part: "...Where
did you get the idea that I consider you" tastefully impudent
and rarely, if ever, sincere"? It must be your own fecund
imagination which has put such words into your head... you are
one of the few sincere reviewers there are, and you must realize
that spontaneous reactions such as yours are the things which
make it worth while for the poet to write... Amy Lowell".
Lowell was born to a prominent Massachusetts family. She lived
as a socialite and travelled widely, turning to poetry in 1902
after being inspired by a performance of Eleonora Duse in Europe.
Her first published work appeared in 1910 in Atlantic Monthly.
The first published collection of her poetry, A Dome of Many-Coloured
Glass, appeared two years later. That same year, she met
actress Ada Dwyer Russell, who became her companion and lover
and the subject of her more erotic work. The two women travelled
to England together, where Lowell met Ezra Pound, who was at
once a major influence and a major critic of her work.
Lowell was an imposing figure, who dressed in clothing considered
manly, kept her hair cropped short, and wore a pince-nez. She
smoked cigars onstantly, claiming that they lasted longer than
cigarettes. A glandular problem kept her perpetually overweight,
so that Pound once commented that she was a "hippopoetess."
Her writing also included critical works on French literature
and a biography of John Keats. She died of a cerebral hemorrhage
in 1925. The following year, she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize
for Poetry for What's O'Clock. Forgotten for years, there
has been a resurgence of interest in her work because of its
focus on lesbian themes and her collection of love poems addressed
to Ada Dwyer Russell.
A fine letter, and rather scarce autograph to find. Normal folds,
otherwise, very good. $SOLD
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