sara teasdale

i first found sara teasdale my freshman year of college. i was in hicks undergrad library, wandering through the poetry section (as i was in my first poetry class and newly interested in reading poetry, not just writing journal poetry) and i found the collected poems of sara teasdale. it's funny whenever you read about people reading one of her poems for the first time, they talk about being sucked in, or immediately identifying with her, which was how i felt - i think i stood in the aisle for a long time, just reading, and then finally checked it out. eventually, i found my own copy, at one of those antique book sales (actually, my copy is haunted which is a whole separate story :)

sara teasdale won the pulitzer prize for poetry in 1918, just one year before carl sandburg did.

besides, poetry is in the eye of the beholder. that's what's i think is so wonderful about it. i think sara teasdale's poetry is lyrical, beautiful, and not at all pretentious.

"Sara's poetry follows the feminine school of poetry in that love was the central theme. Even though her early work is girlish, her discipline and clean simplicity display the strength of understatement which characterizes the body of her work. She wrote of her emotions, her emotional response to the world and people around her." (from her biography Sara Teasdale, Woman & Poet, published in 1979 )

not bad for a rabid monkey with no arms ;)