List of Published Works

• A Dome Of Many Coloured Glass (1912)

• Sword Blades and Poppy Seed (1914)

• Six French Poets (1915)

• Men, Women and Ghosts (1916)

• Tendencies in Modern American Poetry (1917)

• Pictures of the Floating Word (1919)

Born to a wealthy New England family, Amy Lowell was raised amongst socialites. Because of Lowell’s wealth she was able and even encouraged at times to experience many different countries and exciting places. She was also a relative of the famous poets Robert Lowell and James Russell Lowell, although there is no real resemblance between them. She grew up on an estate called “Sevenals” in Brookline, Massachusetts, where she remained until she passed away. Until Lowell reached the age of 14, she was educated at home by an English governess. At 14 she was allowed to go to private schools in Brookline and Boston, but did not receive good comments from teachers. Once school ended, she became a debutant and was definitely a popular debutant. After being debuted she began to care for her sickly parents at their family home. Lowell was certainly popular. She attended many a party and was enjoyed by all. Lowell then began her self-education, because a women of her sort was not allowed to receive higher education. She used her father’s extensive library of books and through determination she educated herself. She developed a passion for poetry when she found and read Leigh Hunt’s “Imagination and Fancy.” This book became a eye-opener to her and she began to grow on her childhood like for poetry  Then she saw a play acted in by Eleanora Duse, which made Amy realize she was a poet. The play turned her love and passion for poetry into her realization that she herself was a poet

            Lowell then saw a poem written by Hilda Doolittle. She was fascinated and intrigued by Doolittle’s poetry. She wanted to explore the imagist movement, so she took a trip to England where she met Ezra Pound, a leader of the imagist movement. Lowell became very involved with imagism and brought it to the U.S. Lowell then devoted most of her life to spreading and developing imagism. Imagism is the use of free-verse and clear images in poetry. Lowell also was devoted to writing her own imagist poetry. Most people loved Lowell’s poems. She used descriptive images that where so beautiful and deep in meaning. She rarely used verbs that were useless in her poems. Her poetry was purely images. Lowell’s thinking behind her poems was drawn from experiences. She wrote many poems about her experiences with women, but you cannot see this in her poems until you look in depth at them. Lowell’s meanings are hidden beneath the images. She rarely states her meaning for something directly in a poem. Although her meanings are sometimes hidden, she is a very clear poet. Her images are clear and understandable. She wanted her work to stand out because of the images she uses. Although many people like imagism, Lowell did not receive much appreciation during her life-time. People thought of her as different. She did not act like other people and had odd habits, that is how many people thought of her. That was the one thing that held people back. She became more appreciated and well received after her death. Amy received one award, the Pulitzer Prize for “What’s A Clock,” the year after her death in 1925. Amy was a leader of imagism and a very successful poet. She is the person we have to thank for imagism in America.