Harriet Monroe

Harriet Monroe (December 23, 1860 – September 26, 1936) was an American editor, scholar, literary critic, poet and patron of the arts.

Harriet Monroe in 1920

Quotes

• A book of poems should have almost as many dedications as titles for the poet must always sing for some friend whether the friend knows it or not
  • Dedication 'You and I' Macmillan, New York October 1914

• Poetry, perhaps the finest of fine arts, certainly the shynest and most elusive? ,poetry which must have listeners, which cannot sing into a void.
  • A Poets life, Seventy Years in Changing the World Macmillan, New York 1938

The New Poetry (1918)

The New Poetry - An anthology ed Monroe & Henderson Macmillan 1918

• 'Verse libertines' pioneered the work to get rid of obstacles between that which hampered the poet and separated him from his audience, less a matter of rules and formulae , more a return of spirit.

• What is new poetry? The difference is not mere details of form, measure rhyme schemes or diction, but a return to contemporary speech, thought, imagination and spiritual life, coupled with oriental (Japan & China) and cosmopolitan influences ,and a direction of vision, with perfection of form and delicacy of feeling.

Quotes about Harriet Monroe

• Translators, again-the most abused and patient lot of folk on earth-are helpful in making us better acquainted; though we hope the time will soon come when citizens of the twenty-one republics will no longer need translators. There is no reason for our not speaking each other's language...We may recall also such friendly gestures as that of Harriet Monroe, who dedicated an entire number of her magazine, Poetry, to poets of Spanish America...
  • Muna Lee (writer) "Cultural Interchanges between the Americas" (1929) in A Pan-American Life: Selected Poetry and Prose of Muna Lee, edited and with biography by Jonathan Cohen