Amy Lowell

Amy Lowell 1874-1925, American poet, biographer, and critic, b. Brookline, Mass., privately educated; sister of Percival Lowell and Abbott Lawrence Lowell. In 1912 she published A Dome of Many-Colored Glass, a volume of conventional verse. The next year she went to England, where she met Ezra Pound and became identified with the imagists . After Pound abandoned the group, she became its leader and champion, publishing a three-volume anthology entitled Some Imagist Poets (1915, 1916, 1917). Lowell's own poetry is particularly notable for its rendering of sensuous images. Her experiments with polyphonic prose, a free-verse form that combines prose and poetry, are considered unsuccessful. Among her volumes of poetry are Sword Blades and Poppy Seed (1914), Men, Women, and Ghosts (1916), Can Grande's Castle (1918), What's o'Clock (1925; Pulitzer Prize), East Wind (1926), and Ballads for Sale (1927). Her best-known poems are "Patterns" and "Lilacs." Lowell's perceptive and dynamic criticism includes Six French Poets (1915) and Tendencies in Modern American Poetry (1917). Her most ambitious work is her two-volume biography of Keats (1925).

Bibliography: See biographies by H. Gregory (1958) and S. F. Damon (1935, repr. 1966).

Lowell, Amy (1874–1925) US poet and critic, sister of Percival Lowell. Her first volume was the sensuous A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass (1912). Following the exit of Ezra Pound, Lowell became the leader of the imagism movement. Sword Blades and Poppy Seed (1914) was an experiment with ‘polyphonic prose’, or free-verse.

Lowell, Amy Lawrence (1874–1925), American poet, took up Imagism and in 1913 and 1914 visited England, where she met Pound, D. H. Lawrence, and ‘H.D.’ ( Hilda Doolittle). Her volumes of verse, which include Sword Blades and Poppy Seed (1914), Men, Women and Ghosts (1916), and Can Grande's Castle (1918), show her experiments in what she called ‘polyphonic prose’. She became well known as a public figure, vast and cigar-smoking, through her lectures and readings in America.