Devilish, Daring, and Demure: Meet the Hottest Women in Poetry

Poetry month came and went. I never had a chance to reveal my favorite poets and poems. That’s because every time I sat down to review my poetry collections and choose a few faves, it looked like I was going to write something that resembled a book rather than a blog post. Finally, I narrowed it down to a manageable number. We’re going to start by taking a look at three poetry queens and in a couple of weeks I will reveal the kings.

Three Favorite Women Poets

These three women poets are hailed for their work and well-known for leading interesting lives. Here, I’ve included a bit of both – short bios and links to a few favorite poems they wrote, plus resources so you can explore the women and their poems further.

Aphra Behn

She lived during the 1600s so you might assume she was a prim and proper lady who did whatever her husband or the king told her. You would be wrong. Aphra broke all the rules and her ability to shock and surprise lives on pretty vividly in her poetry.

During a time when the few women poets were upper class and did so as a hobby, Aphra established herself as Britain’s first professional woman writer. Ladies, take note, because Virginia Woolf said, “All women together ought to let flowers fall upon the tomb of Aphra Behn, for it was she who earned them the right to speak their minds.”

I can’t say I agree with Virginia one hundred percent (isn’t that a natural right rather than an earned one?), but Aphra, even after over 300 years, definitely stands out in the crowd of historical writers. Not only because she was a spy, a playwright, and the first paid female writer, she was also deliciously dirty and wrote poems that were blatantly erotic and peppered with humor. Of her, Anne Finch said, “a little too loosely she writ.” We like that in a seventeenth century chick.

Selected reading (i.e. my favorites): The Willing Mistress, The Disappointment, The Libertine

If you don’t crack a sly grin at the end of each of these poems… well… read them again!

Emily Dickinson

photo credit: Confetta

Who hasn’t heard of Emily Dickinson? Before J.K. Rowling wowed the world with Harry Potter, Miss Dickinson was the most famous woman writer to have ever lived. And not just because she wrote great poetry.

Emily bucked the social expectations of her time by never marrying and becoming an eccentric agoraphobic who always dressed in white. Despite her odd ways, she was much beloved and known around town as the Amherst Myth.

Emily was born and raised in Amherst, Massachusetts during the 1800s and it was clear by the time Emily became an adult that she was marching to the beat of a different drum, which is why many people are surprised to learn she had an extremely normal childhood and grew up in a happy, affluent family. Yet Emily gave up a life of normalcy to pursue her one and only love: poetry.

She locked herself away from the Victorian world whose expectations she rebuffed and threw herself into books and writing. Not much is known about her love life or whether she had one but one thing is certain: Emily Dickinson was wracked with unparalleled literary intensity.

The majority of her poems were found after her death, untitled but neatly written and bound. They are usually numbered or titled by their first lines. Emily Dickinson is also a poet whose biography and poetry play well off each other, building a special mystery that will draw you in wondering who this enigmatic woman really was.

Selected reading: (271) A solemn thing, (288) I’m Nobody!, (384) No Rack can torture me, (441) This is my letter to the World, (569) I reckon — when I count at all, (712) Because I could not stop for Death

There’s a lot of Dickinson poems to explore. This is a very small portion of what she left us. Most of these are short, quick reads.

Dorothy Parker

Dorothy Parker is probably the writer most loved by dress-wearing feminists. She was cool, dry, and witty beyond measure. She put her own flaws under a magnifying glass and wrote about them, letting the world laugh at her but there’s a sense that somewhere inside, Dorothy Parker was not laughing.

She is the woman who smiles and nods niceties while whispering obscene, comedic insults against all of society under her breath. I imagine when she cast her eyes over a person, she saw beyond the visible and I’d bet she could give a look that made anyone on the receiving end feel uncomfortably naked.

Dorothy catapulted to fame during the 1920s and 1930s after she coined “Brevity is the soul of lingerie” for an ad. Her job? To write photograph captions for Vogue. After that, she went to work for Vanity Fair. She was also a prominent member of the Algonquin Hotel’s Round Table, which means she was in with the in crowd. She also helped shape the New Yorker, which is no small accomplishment and doesn’t look too bad on anyone’s resume, even these days.

Like many writers, Dorothy experienced turbulence in life. She married bisexual writer, Alan Campbell, with whom she had several breakups and reconciliations. After an abortion in 1923, she attempted suicide (the first attempt of many). She and Campbell earned over $5000 a week in Hollywood at one time (that was a lot of money in those days) and were later blacklisted as communists during the McCarthy era.

Her poetry is delightfully wit-tickling and her quotes are unforgettable ( she wrote “men seldom make passes at girls who wear glasses”). Though much of her work expresses a particular sense of self-dissatisfaction, it’s clear that Dorothy Parker’s dissatisfaction went beyond self and extended to all of humanity, especially the gents. However, she delivered it with language that smirks and smarts and satisfies.

Selected Reading: Comment, Interview, Resumé

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Now it’s your turn. Who are your favorite ladies of poetry? What attracts you to a poem or poet? Obviously, I’m drawn to the rebels, the rule-breakers, and the eccentrics. Do you prefer women poets over male writers or does it matter? Take a look at your book or poetry collection and see if it’s gender balanced.

Sources: The Norton Anthology of Literature by Women: The Traditions in English and included links.

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