Lorine Niedecker: Woman & Poet (Modern Poets)

Literary Nonfiction. Poetry History & Criticism. Lorine Niedecker lived most of her life (1903-1970) on Blackhawk Island, Wisconsin. Her poetry was formed by her early encounter with Surrealism and the Objectivist issue of Poetry magazine. In the mid-1960s she recalled for Kenneth Cox that "there was an influence from transition and from surrealistes that has always seemed to want to ride right along with the direct, hard, objective kind of writing. The subconscious and the presence of the folk, always there."

LORINE NIEDECKER: WOMAN AND POET addresses the ambition of Niedecker's poetry and poetics. The volume includes letters, memoirs, and essays, covering all four decades of her writing career. Among the letters, those Niedecker wrote to Mary Hoard and Harriet Monroe define her early poetics. Memoirs by Jerry Reisman, Edwin Honig, and Vivien Hone extend our understanding of her life in the 1930s and 1940s. Essays by Rachel Blau DuPlessis, Marjorie Perloff, Peter Nicholls, Peter Quartermain, Michael Heller, Kenneth Cox, Douglas Crase, Donald Davie, Lisa Pater Faranda, Gilbert Sorrentino, and others, provide authoritative readings of Niedecker's work.