To the Many

"It is characteristic of literary history to be forgetful of writers who fall outside of its expected patterns. Lola Ridge - poet, anarchist and passionate feminist - should by rights be a name to set next to, though in contrast to, her modernist contemporaries, Gertrude Stein and Marianne Moore. She should be recognized as a forerunner of Muriel Rukeyser and Denise Levertov, a strong figure anticipating Andrienne Rich. Yet owing to the waywardness of political and literary fashion, after her death in 1941, Ridge's five books of verse, prized and praised in their time, lie buried in that unsettled no woman's land of the middle twentieth century. Now Daniel Tobin has come to the rescue by editing this enlightened edition of Lola Ridge's affecting, wonderfully accessible New York poems with a view to making her work available to readers like myself who had hardly heard of her before. Tobin's compassionate introduction to her life-struggle as a woman determined to write in accord with her beliefs and his wise inclusion of her fierce, still-relevant lecture of 1919, Woman and the Creative Will, should win her a large audience of sympathizers. It is high time Lola Ridge was recognized by thousands of women who are triumphantly following in her footsteps today, most of them without even knowing of this interesting, in some ways tragic precursor to whose life and work we all should feel gratefully indebted." Anne Stevenson

PBS Autumn Special Commendation 2018Transnational long before the term gained currency, Lola Ridge (1873-1941) was one of the most notable poets writing in America from the publication of her first book, The Ghetto, in 1918 until her death, inauspiciously, shortly before America s entry into the Second World War. Included are the complete texts of her first three books of poems, The Ghetto, Sun-Up, and Red Flag, as well as the never before published manuscript Verses (1905), the book of early poems she sought to publish in Australia before departing for America in 1907. With its publication, Lola Ridge s important place in the history of twentieth century poetry takes a significant step toward being recognized and restored."