
This post is part of a series that takes a closer look at the scholarship behind IU Press Journals. Primarily written by journal editors and contributors, posts may respond to articles, provide background, document the development process, or explain why scholars are excited about the journal, theme, or article.
Paul Bradley Bellew’s article, "At the Mercy of Editorial Selection: Amy Lowell, Ezra Pound, and the Imagist Anthologies,” from Journal of Modern Literature’s newest issue is now available on JSTOR & Project MUSE. Below, Paul elaborates on the life and work of erotic love poet Amy Lowell.
I first took notice of American modernist Amy Lowell’s poetry in a PhD seminar. Two of her works particularly caught my attention: “New Heavens for Old”—a fascinating description of the gender politics of the modernist poetry scene, a must read for any scholar of the period—and the love poem “A Decade,” a short piece packed with erotic energy. The latter poem part of a series of love poems in her 1919 collection Pictures of the Floating World that, in my opinion, is some of the finest erotic love poetry in English.
So who was Lowell? She was a lesbian from a wealthy family who dominated free-verse poetry in the late 1910s and early 1920s. She went on tours regularly, poetry readings and lectures that usually sold out. (That’s right, sold-out poetry lectures!) By all accounts, she was a bit of a legend in her own time. But today, unfortunately, many people don’t really know her.
The night I first mentioned to some fellow graduate students that my dissertation would have a chapter focused on Lowell, one of them responded, “Oh, the ‘hippo-poetess’!” She was the only one in the group who had heard of Lowell at all, and only the notorious fat joke, first coined by the poet Witter Bynner and repeated often by Ezra Pound.
This is actually emblematic of Lowell’s place in the modern canon—or, historically, her absence from it. For if there's anything that she is best known for, it’s her conflicted relationship with Pound—the man who popularized the joke.
In short, Lowell and Pound were nemeses. Their conflict is rooted in the history of Imagism, often described as the first modernist poetry movement. Pound was essentially the founder of the movement, and Lowell, a latecomer, took over after he left for his next project. The narrative we typically read in literary studies is that she “stole” control of the movement from Pound, diluted its experimental nature, and exploited it for money. This story comes straight from Ezra Pound himself because, well, he won the fight. And in the end, it’s the winners who write literary history.
There are a few reasons Lowell lost to Pound: she was a woman, she was fat, she was queer, she was popular (real poetry doesn't appeal to the masses, it was said), and, sadly, she died first—during the height of modernism in 1925. Pound lived on to publish more works, build a larger following and a more notable (and politically notorious) reputation. It’s not surprising that Lowell was forgotten for decades.
Lowell’s reputation has gradually recaptured some of its past grandeur, particular in the late twentieth century rise of queer studies. And in contemporary studies of middlebrow and celebrity modernism, she is gaining even more traction. So perhaps we can begin to revise the old story of Lowell as the thief of Imagism.
I don’t think we should forget the old anecdote, even if it’s wise to stop believing it. Because—to use the old adage—where there’s smoke, there’s fire. Whether it’s just a mean-spirited joke or a gossip about conflict in a poetry movement, when particular stories have dominated an era of literary history, there’s likely something more there. The tales of insults and intrigues work to simplify a story that was certainly more complex, and it’s our job as readers, scholars, and lovers of modern literature to figure out what realities have been hidden.
Paul Bradley Bellew is Assistant Professor of Humanities at Boğaziçi University in Istanbul, Turkey. His research focuses on American modernism, poetry and poetics, material and archival studies, and queer theory.
More from the Journal of Modern Literature 40.2
REVISITING MODERNIST CLASSICS
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Paul Bradley Bellew
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