The Poetry Of Sara Teasdale: "No one worth possessing can be quite possessed."

by Sara Teasdale

In this series we look at individual poets who have shaped and influenced their craft and cement their place in our heritage. In this volume we look at the works of Sara Teasdale. Sara Trevor Teasdale was born on August 8, 1884 in St Louis, Missouri. A woman of poor health it was only at 14 that she was well enough to begin school. Her education finished in 1903 at Hosmer Hall and her first poetry publication was in 1907 with her second book in 1911. Sara’s third poetry collection, Rivers to the Sea, was published in 1915 and was a best seller, being reprinted many times. A year later, in 1916 she moved to New York City and in 1917 released Love Songs. It won three the Columbia University Poetry Society prize, the 1918 Pulitzer Prize for poetry and the annual prize of the Poetry Society of America. By 1929 Sara was deeply unhappy and filed for divorce. Sara remained in New York City and resumed her friendship with Vachel Lindsay, who was by this time married with children. 1931 Vachel Lindsay committed suicide. Two year later Sara to was dead - overdosing on sleeping pills. She is buried in the Bellefontaine Cemetery in St. Louis. Many of those poems are published in our audiobook version available at iTunes, Amazon and other digital stores.

147 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 24, 2013

About the author

Sara Teasdale was an American lyrical poet. She was born Sara Trevor Teasdale in St. Louis, Missouri, and after her marriage in 1914 she went by the name Sara Teasdale Filsinger.

Teasdale's first poem was published in Reedy's Mirror, a local newspaper, in 1907. Her first collection of poems, Sonnets to Duse and Other Poems, was published that same year.

Teasdale's second collection of poems, Helen of Troy and Other Poems, was published in 1911. It was well received by critics, who praised its lyrical mastery and romantic subject matter.

In the years 1911 to 1914, Teasdale was courted by several men, including poet Vachel Lindsay, who was absolutely in love with her but did not feel that he could provide enough money or stability to keep her satisfied. She chose instead to marry Ernst Filsinger, who had been an admirer of her poetry for a number of years, on December 19, 1914.

Teasdale's third poetry collection, Rivers to the Sea, was published in 1915 and was a best seller, being reprinted several times. A year later, in 1916 she moved to New York City with Filsinger, where they resided in an Upper West Side apartment on Central Park West.

In 1918, her poetry collection Love Songs (released 1917) won three awards: the Columbia University Poetry Society prize, the 1918 Pulitzer Prize for poetry and the annual prize of the Poetry Society of America.

Filsinger was away a lot on business which caused a lot of loneliness for Teasdale. In 1929, she moved interstate for three months, thereby satisfying the criteria to gain a divorce. She did not wish to inform Filsinger, and only did so at the insistence of her lawyers as the divorce was going through - Filsinger was shocked and surprised.

Post-divorce, Teasdale remained in New York City, living only two blocks away from her old home on Central Park West. She rekindled her friendship with Vachel Lindsay, who was by this time married with children.

In 1933, she committed suicide by overdosing on sleeping pills. Her friend Vachel Lindsay had committed suicide two years earlier. She is interred in the Bellefontaine Cemetery in St. Louis.

-taken from: Wikipedia

Reviews

[Kent Winward · Rating 3 out of 5]

Life has loveliness to sell . . .

[ZaRi]

There Will Come Soft Rain - Poem by Sara Teasdale
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There will come soft rain and the smell of the ground,
And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;

And frogs in the pools singing at night,
And wild plum trees in tremulous white;

Robins will wear their feathery fire,
Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;

And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it is done.

Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree,
If mankind perished utterly;

And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn
Would scarcely know that we were gone.