Hilda Conkling was an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 poet

Poet

A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...

. She was the daughter of Grace Hazard Conkling

Grace Conkling

Grace Walcott Hazard Conkling was an American author, born in New York City, educated at Smith College and abroad. In 1914, she went to Smith to teach English...

, a poet in her own right and Assistant Professor of English at Smith College

Smith College

Smith College is a private, independent women's liberal arts college located in Northampton, Massachusetts. It is the largest member of the Seven Sisters...

, Northampton, Massachusetts

Northampton, Massachusetts

The city of Northampton is the county seat of Hampshire County, Massachusetts, United States. As of the 2010 census, the population of Northampton's central neighborhoods, was 28,549...

. Hilda was born in New York

New York

New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

 state. Her father died when she was four years old, and she had one sister, Elsa, two years her senior.

Hilda is notable for having composed most of her poetry as a young child

Child

Biologically, a child is generally a human between the stages of birth and puberty. Some vernacular definitions of a child include the fetus, as being an unborn child. The legal definition of "child" generally refers to a minor, otherwise known as a person younger than the age of majority...

, between the ages of four and ten years old. She never wrote them down herself; instead, they came out in conversation with her mother, who would write down Hilda's words either in the moment, or from memory later. If the latter, she would read the lines back to Hilda, who would then correct any deviation from her original words. As Hilda grew up, her mother stopped recording the poems, and Hilda is not known to have written any herself as an adult.

Poetry

Most of Hilda's poetry is concerned with nature

Nature

Nature, in the broadest sense, is equivalent to the natural world, physical world, or material world. "Nature" refers to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general...

; sometimes simply descriptive, sometimes mixed with elements of fantasy

Fantasy

Fantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic is common...

. Other common themes are love for her mother, stories and daydreams, and pictures or books that pleased her. Often these themes intertwine, and she often makes use of metaphor

Metaphor

A metaphor is a literary figure of speech that uses an image, story or tangible thing to represent a less tangible thing or some intangible quality or idea; e.g., "Her eyes were glistening jewels." Metaphor may also be used for any rhetorical figures of speech that achieve their effects via...

 in her descriptions of plants and animals.

Three collections of Hilda's poetry were published during her life: Poems by a Little Girl (1920, preface by Amy Lowell

Amy Lowell

Amy Lawrence Lowell was an American poet of the imagist school from Brookline, Massachusetts who posthumously won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1926.- Personal life:...

), Shoes of the Wind (1922), and Silverhorn (1924). Her poems were also included in the anthologies Silver Pennies (1925) and Sing a Song of Popcorn (1988). Prior to her first book, she was published in a number of magazines, including Poetry: A Magazine of Verse

Poetry (magazine)

Poetry , published in Chicago, Illinois since 1912, is one of the leading monthly poetry journals in the English-speaking world. Published by the Poetry Foundation and currently edited by Christian Wiman, the magazine has a circulation of 30,000 and prints 300 poems per year out of approximately...

, The Delineator

The Delineator

The Delineator was an American women's magazine of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, founded by the Butterick Publishing Company in 1869 under the name The Metropolitan Monthly. Its name was changed in 1875. In November 1926, under the editorship of Mrs...

, Good Housekeeping

Good Housekeeping

Good Housekeeping is a women's magazine owned by the Hearst Corporation, featuring articles about women's interests, product testing by The Good Housekeeping Institute, recipes, diet, health as well as literary articles. It is well known for the "Good Housekeeping Seal," popularly known as the...

, The Lyric, St. Nicholas Magazine

St. Nicholas Magazine

St. Nicholas Magazine was a popular children's magazine, founded by Scribner's in 1873. The first editor was Mary Mapes Dodge, who continued her association with the magazine until her death in 1905. Dodge published work by the country's best writers, including Louisa May Alcott, Francis Hodgson...

, and Contemporary Verse.

Modern influence

Three of Hilda Conkling's poems—Evening, Moonsong, and Water--were used as the text for a choral piece called Three Nightsongs by American composer

Composer

A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...

 Joshua Shank.

"Water", "About My Dreams", "Snow Capped Mountain", and "The White Cloud" have been set to music by American composer http://www.jdfrizzell.com J.D. Frizzell.

External links

• Hilda Conkling at OldPoetry.com More information and over a hundred poems