Female Poets – Interesting Literature

Six Female Poets Whose Poetry Has Been Forgotten

In this special guest blog post, Ana Sampson discusses six female poets whose poetry has been forgotten (even if they are remembered for something else!)

In 2017, I decided that I wanted to read an anthology of poems by women spanning many centuries and diverse points of view. There had been nothing of this nature published for at least the last two decades. I began to research my own, in the process discovering a rich seam of wonderful work I had never read before, though some of the names were already familiar. Here are six women who wrote fantastic poetry – though it is not what they are remembered for today.

Mary Elizabeth Coleridge (1861-1907)

Mary was the great-great-niece of Romantic poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, but was much better known during her life for her eerie, imaginative novels.

10 of the Best Sonnets by Female Poets

Selected by Dr Oliver Tearle

The first named writer in world history was a woman, Enheduanna. The sonnet form was Italian in origin, of course, but a host of English poets have made it their own: Shakespeare, Milton, Wordsworth, Keats, Auden, and many besides. But what is often overlooked is what female poets have done with the form. Indeed, the first ever sonnet sequence written in English was by a woman (see below). In this post we’ve gathered together ten of the greatest sonnets by female English poets.

A Very Short Biography of Anne Locke

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

Anne Locke (c. 1530-c. 1590) is not a well-known figure in the annals of English poetry, yet she has an important and interesting – not to mention little-known – claim to literary fame, so her biography is worth dwelling on. As we discuss in our new book about obscure and forgotten books, The Secret Library: A Book-Lovers’ Journey Through Curiosities of History, Locke was not only the first Englishwoman to write a sonnet sequence, but the first English poet of either gender to do so.