Laura Riding (1901–1991)
Author of Anarchism Is Not Enough
About the Author
Laura Riding is surely one of the most mysterious and neglected poets of the twentieth century. Although she is unknown to most casual readers of poetry, Kenneth Rexroth has said that "Laura Riding is the greatest lost poet in American literature." Riding was born in New York City and educated at show more Cornell University. Her work appeared in the 1920s in numerous small literary magazines, including The Fugitive. In 1925 she went to Europe, where she and Robert Graves ran the Seizin Press in Majorca. In 1939 she returned to the United States, renounced poetry, and since then has lived in Florida writing studies on the nature of language with her husband, Schuyler Jackson. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Works by Laura Riding
Rational Meaning: A New Foundation for the Definition of Words and Supplementary Essays (1997) 6 copies
Poems. A Joking Word 3 copies
Twenty poems less 3 copies
Selections 2 copies
Though Gently 2 copies
Voltaire, a biographical fantasy 2 copies
A Poem 1 copy
Americans 1 copy
Laura and Francisca. 1 copy
Focus 1 copy
Poet : A Lying Word 1 copy
Everybody's letters 1 copy
Pictures 1 copy
Selected Poems 1 copy
The world and ourselves 1 copy
14A 1 copy
A mistake somewhere 1 copy
Associated Works
World Poetry: An Anthology of Verse from Antiquity to Our Time (1998) — Contributor — 469 copies, 1 review
American Poetry: The Twentieth Century, Volume Two: E. E. Cummings to May Swenson (2000) — Contributor — 421 copies, 1 review
Poetry Speaks Expanded: Hear Poets Read Their Own Work from Tennyson to Plath (2007) — Contributor — 154 copies, 2 reviews
The Fugitive Poets: Modern Southern Poetry (Southern Classics Series) (1991) — Contributor — 116 copies
In'hui, No.9 — Contributor — 1 copy
The Reviewer, Volume V, Numbers 1-4 (Jan-Oct 1925) — Contributor — 1 copy
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Other names
- Jackson, Laura
Gottschalk, Laura Riding
Rich, Barbara (pseudonym)
Vara, Madeleine (pseudonym)
Outcome, Lilith (pseudonym)
Reiter, Lilian (pseudonym) (show all 8)
Reichenthal, Laura (birth name)
Jackson, Laura Riding - Birthdate
- 1901-01-16
- Date of death
- 1991-09-02
- Gender
- female
- Nationality
- USA
- Birthplace
- New York, New York, USA
- Place of death
- Sebastian, Florida, USA
- Places of residence
- New York, New York, USA
London, England, UK
New Hope, Pennsylvania, USA
Deià, Mallorca, Spain
Sebastian, Florida, USA - Education
- Cornell University
- Occupations
- poet
critic
novelist
essayist
short-story writer - Relationships
- Gottschalk, Louis R. (husband)
Jackson, Schuyler B. (husband)
Graves, Robert (partner) - Organizations
- The Fugitives
- Awards and honors
- Bollingen Prize (1991)
Members
Reviews
Laura Riding writes:
Plainly the only problem is to avoid the love of lost identity which drives so many clever people to hold difficult points of view – by difficult I mean big, hungry, religious points of view which absorb their personality. I for one am resolved to mind or not mind only to the degree where my point of view is no larger than myself. I can thus have a great number of points of view, like fingers, and which I can treat as I treat the fingers of my hand, to hold my cup, to tap the table for me and fold themselves away when I do not wish to think.
.… (more)
Plainly the only problem is to avoid the love of lost identity which drives so many clever people to hold difficult points of view – by difficult I mean big, hungry, religious points of view which absorb their personality. I for one am resolved to mind or not mind only to the degree where my point of view is no larger than myself. I can thus have a great number of points of view, like fingers, and which I can treat as I treat the fingers of my hand, to hold my cup, to tap the table for me and fold themselves away when I do not wish to think.
.… (more)
Lists
The Trojan War (1)
Awards
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Associated Authors
Statistics
- Works
- 52
- Also by
- 13
- Members
- 530
- Popularity
- #46,961
- Rating
- 4.0
- Reviews
- 4
- ISBNs
- 62
- Languages
- 6
- Favorited
- 3
Their hands, with which they wrote, were a-tingle, but their feet, with which the hesitated, were numb, and their faces, with which they regretted what they wrote, were blue. And so they went on, hoping to write something that they would not regret, but continually regretting and therefore growing continually more and more blue-in-the face.
What then of fiction? What then of truth? The only answer that may be given is that it is not possible to lie.
My friends love me. My lovers adore me. I must choose among them, though I do not wish to, since my beauty demands action.
I miss the rendez-vous by a shyness of the inexact, you by a shyness of the insufficient. We do not touch. But our language is the language of the rendez-vous.
And so I don’t want you to think that even fundamentally the subject of money bores me. Nothing that can be turned into writing bores me.
Obtuseness is a time-proved protection against the danger of facing facts more squarely than one’s interests require.… (more)