List of feminist poets
Encyclopedia
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- Maya AngelouMaya AngelouMaya Angelou is an American author and poet who has been called "America's most visible black female autobiographer" by scholar Joanne M. Braxton. She is best known for her series of six autobiographical volumes, which focus on her childhood and early adult experiences. The first and most highly...
- Elvia ArdalaniElvia ArdalaniElvia Ardalani or Elvia García Ardalani, born on June 4, 1963 in Heroica Matamoros Tamaulipas, Mexico, is a Mexican writer, poet, and storyteller...
- Margaret AtwoodMargaret AtwoodMargaret Eleanor Atwood, is a Canadian poet, novelist, literary critic, essayist, and environmental activist. She is among the most-honoured authors of fiction in recent history; she is a winner of the Arthur C...
- Djuna BarnesDjuna BarnesDjuna Barnes was an American writer who played an important part in the development of 20th century English language modernist writing and was one of the key figures in 1920s and '30s bohemian Paris after filling a similar role in the Greenwich Village of the teens...
- Aphra BehnAphra BehnAphra Behn was a prolific dramatist of the English Restoration and was one of the first English professional female writers. Her writing contributed to the amatory fiction genre of British literature.-Early life:...
- Elizabeth BishopElizabeth BishopElizabeth Bishop was an American poet and short-story writer. She was the Poet Laureate of the United States from 1949 to 1950, a Pulitzer Prize winner in 1956 and a National Book Award Winner for Poetry in 1970. Elizabeth Bishop House is an artists' retreat in Great Village, Nova Scotia...
- Eavan BolandEavan Boland-Biography:Boland's father, Frederick Boland, was a career diplomat and her mother, Frances Kelly, was a noted post-expressionist painter. She was born in Dublin in 1944. At the age of six, Boland's father was appointed Irish Ambassador to the United Kingdom; the family followed him to London,...
- Sophia Elisabet BrennerSophia Elisabet BrennerSophia Elisabet Brenner was a Swedish writer, poet, feminist and salon hostess, and was regarded in her country as a pioneer in each of these fields.- Biography :...
- Karen Brodine
- Olga BroumasOlga BroumasOlga Broumas , is a Greek poet, resident in the United States.-Biography:Born and raised in Greece, Broumas secured a fellowship through the Fulbright program to study in the United States at the University of Pennsylvania; she earned her Bachelor's degree in architecture...
- Lucille CliftonLucille CliftonLucille Clifton was an American writer and educator from Buffalo, New York. From 1979–1985 she was Poet Laureate of Maryland...
- Lori Ann Coleman
- Mary CollierMary CollierMary Collier was an English poet, perhaps best known for her poetic risposte to Stephen Duck, The Woman's Labour.Collier is an important figure in the self-taught, laboring-class tradition in eighteenth-century poetry, a tradition which also includes Duck, as well as Ann Yearsley and Mary...
- H.D.H.D.H.D. was an American poet, novelist and memoirist known for her association with the early 20th century avant-garde Imagist group of poets such as Ezra Pound and Richard Aldington...
(Hilda Doolittle) 1886-1961 - Emily DickinsonEmily DickinsonEmily Elizabeth Dickinson was an American poet. Born in Amherst, Massachusetts, to a successful family with strong community ties, she lived a mostly introverted and reclusive life...
- Diane Di PrimaDiane di PrimaDiane Di Prima is an American poet.-Early life:Di Prima was born in Brooklyn. She attended Hunter College High School and Swarthmore College before dropping out to be a poet in Manhattan...
- Carol-Ann Duffy
- Rachel Blau DuPlessisRachel Blau DuPlessisRachel Blau DuPlessis an American poet and essayist, is known as a feminist critic and scholar with a special interest in modernist and contemporary poetry.-Life and work:...
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- Eve EnslerEve EnslerEve Ensler is an American playwright, performer, feminist and activist, best known for her play The Vagina Monologues.- Personal life :...
- Fehmida Riaz
- Kishwar NaheedKishwar NaheedKishwar Naheed , Sitara-e-Imtiaz is an Urdu poet from Pakistan known for her pioneering feminist poetry.-Life and Family:...
- Alice FultonAlice FultonAlice Fulton is an American author of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction.- Biography :Fulton was born and raised in Troy, New York, the youngest of three daughters. Her father was the proprietor of the historic Phoenix Hotel, and her mother was a visiting nurse. She began writing poetry in high school...
- Charlotte Perkins GilmanCharlotte Perkins GilmanCharlotte Perkins Gilman was a prominent American sociologist, novelist, writer of short stories, poetry, and nonfiction, and a lecturer for social reform...
(1860–1935) - Judy GrahnJudy GrahnJudy Rae Grahn is an American poet. She has written many lesbian / feminist works.-Activities:Judy Grahn is a poet who writes about women's lives, including lesbian experience. She was a member of the Gay Women's Liberation Group, the first lesbian feminist collective on the west coast, founded...
- Barbara GuestBarbara GuestBarbara Guest née Barbara Ann Pinson was an American poet and prose stylist. Guest first gained recognition as a member of the first generation New York School of poetry....
- Marilyn HackerMarilyn HackerMarilyn Hacker is an American poet, translator and critic. She is Professor of English at the City College of New York....
- Allison Hedge CokeAllison Hedge CokeAllison Adelle Hedge Coke is an American Book Award-winning American/Canadian poet of mixed Wendat/Huron/Metis/Tsalagi/ Creek/French Canadian/Portuguese/Irish/Scot/English ancestry.-Background:...
- Lyn HejinianLyn HejinianLyn Hejinian is an American poet, essayist, translator and publisher. She is often associated with the Language poets and is well known for her landmark work My Life , as well as her book of essays, The Language of Inquiry .-Life:Hejinian was born in the San...
- Susan HoweSusan HoweSusan Howe is a American poet, scholar, essayist and critic, who has been closely associated with the Language poets, among others poetry movements. Her work is often classified as Postmodern because it expands traditional notions of genre...
- Gwen HarwoodGwen HarwoodGwen Harwood AO , née Gwendoline Nessie Foster, was an Australian poet and librettist. Gwen Harwood is regarded as one of Australia's finest poets, publishing over 420 works, including 386 poems and 13 librettos. She won numerous poetry awards and prizes...
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- Sue LenierSue LenierSusan Jennifer Lenier is an English writer. She published two books of poetry and a number of plays.-Biography:Sue Lenier was born in Birmingham, schooled in Tyneside, and attended Clare College, Cambridge...
- Anna Maria LenngrenAnna Maria LenngrenAnna Maria Lenngren was a Swedish writer, poet, feminist, translator and salonist. She is one of the best-known Swedish woman poets.-Background:...
- Denise LevertovDenise Levertov-Early life and influences:Levertov was born and grew up in Ilford, Essex.Couzyn, Jeni Contemporary Women Poets. Bloodaxe, p74 Her mother, Beatrice Spooner-Jones Levertoff, came from a small mining village in North Wales...
- Audre LordeAudre LordeAudre Lorde was a Caribbean-American writer, poet and activist.-Life:...
- Mina LoyMina LoyMina Loy born Mina Gertrude Löwry was an artist, poet, playwright, novelist, Futurist, actress, Christian Scientist, designer of lamps, and bohemian. She was one of the last of the first generation modernists to achieve posthumous recognition. Her poetry was admired by T. S...
- Chris MansellChris MansellChris Mansell is an Australian poet and publisher.Born in Sydney, Chris Mansell grew up on the Central Coast of New South Wales and in Lae, Papua New Guinea, later studying economics at the University of Sydney...
- Edna St Vincent Millay
- Robin MorganRobin MorganRobin Morgan is a former child actor turned American radical feminist activist, writer, poet, and editor of Sisterhood is Powerful and Ms. Magazine....
- Marianne MooreMarianne MooreMarianne Moore was an American Modernist poet and writer noted for her irony and wit.- Life :Moore was born in Kirkwood, Missouri, in the manse of the Presbyterian church where her maternal grandfather, John Riddle Warner, served as pastor. She was the daughter of mechanical engineer and inventor...
- Lorine NiedeckerLorine NiedeckerLorine Faith Niedecker was a Wisconsin poet and the only woman associated with the Objectivist poets...
- Hedvig Charlotta NordenflychtHedvig Charlotta NordenflychtHedvig Charlotta Nordenflycht was a Swedish poet, feminist and salon hostess...
- Alicia OstrikerAlicia OstrikerAlicia Suskin Ostriker is an American poet and scholar who writes Jewish feminist poetry.Alicia is married to the noted astronomer Jeremiah Ostriker who taught at Princeton University...
- Sylvia PankhurstSylvia PankhurstEstelle Sylvia Pankhurst was an English campaigner for the suffragist movement in the United Kingdom. She was for a time a prominent left communist who then devoted herself to the cause of anti-fascism.-Early life:...
1882-1960 - Grace PaleyGrace PaleyGrace Paley was an American-Jewish short story writer, poet, and political activist.-Biography:Grace Paley was born in the Bronx to Isaac and Manya Ridnyik Goodside, who anglicized the family name from Gutseit on immigrating from Ukraine. Her father was a doctor. The family spoke Russian and...
- Dorothy ParkerDorothy ParkerDorothy Parker was an American poet, short story writer, critic and satirist, best known for her wit, wisecracks, and eye for 20th century urban foibles....
1893-1967 - Parveen ShakirParveen ShakirParveen Shakir was an Urdu poet, teacher and a civil servant of the Government of Pakistan.Shakir started writing at an early age and published her first volume of poetry, Khushbu [Fragrance], to great acclaim, in 1976...
- Sylvia PlathSylvia PlathSylvia Plath was an American poet, novelist and short story writer. Born in Massachusetts, she studied at Smith College and Newnham College, Cambridge before receiving acclaim as a professional poet and writer...
- Katha PollittKatha PollittKatha Pollitt is an American feminist poet, essayist and critic. She is the author of four essay collections and two books of poetry...
- Adrienne RichAdrienne RichAdrienne Cecile Rich is an American poet, essayist and feminist. She has been called "one of the most widely read and influential poets of the second half of the 20th century."-Early life:...
- Dorothy RichardsonDorothy RichardsonDorothy Miller Richardson was a British author and journalist.-Biography:Richardson was born in Abingdon in 1873. Her family moved to Worthing, West Sussex in 1880 and then Putney, London in 1883...
- Ethel Rolt-WheelerEthel Rolt WheelerEthel Rolt Wheeler . Poet, author and journalist.Ethel Rolt Wheeler was born Mary Ethel Wheeler, the daughter of the stone merchant, Joseph Wheeler and Amina Cooke Taylor both of Irish descent. She wrote using the pen name Rolt Wheeler, as did her brother, the author and occultist Francis Rolt...
- Christina RossettiChristina RossettiChristina Georgina Rossetti was an English poet who wrote a variety of romantic, devotional, and children's poems...
- Muriel RukeyserMuriel RukeyserMuriel Rukeyser was an American poet and political activist, best known for her poems about equality, feminism, social justice, and Judaism...
1913-1980
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- Sima Yari
- Sonia SanchezSonia SanchezSonia Sanchez is an African American poet most often associated with the Black Arts Movement. She has authored over a dozen books of poetry, as well as plays and children's books...
- SapphoSapphoSappho was an Ancient Greek poet, born on the island of Lesbos. Later Greeks included her in the list of nine lyric poets. Her birth was sometime between 630 and 612 BC, and it is said that she died around 570 BC, but little is known for certain about her life...
- Anne SextonAnne SextonAnne Sexton was an American poet, known for her highly personal, confessional verse. She won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1967...
- Jo ShapcottJo ShapcottJo Shapcott FRSL, is an English poet, editor and lecturer who has won the National Poetry Competition, the Commonwealth Poetry Prize, the Costa Book of the Year Award, a Forward Poetry Prize and the Cholmondeley Award.-Career:...
- Edith SitwellEdith SitwellDame Edith Louisa Sitwell DBE was a British poet and critic.-Background:Edith Sitwell was born in Scarborough, North Yorkshire, the oldest child and only daughter of Sir George Sitwell, 4th Baronet, of Renishaw Hall; he was an expert on genealogy and landscaping...
- Stevie SmithStevie SmithFlorence Margaret Smith, known as Stevie Smith was an English poet and novelist.-Life:Stevie Smith, born Florence Margaret Smith in Kingston upon Hull, was the second daughter of Ethel and Charles Smith. Contemporary Women Poets...
- Gertrude SteinGertrude SteinGertrude Stein was an American writer, poet and art collector who spent most of her life in France.-Early life:...
- May SwensonMay SwensonAnna Thilda May "May" Swenson was an American poet and playwright...
- Sara TeasdaleSara TeasdaleSara 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.-Biography:...
- Marina TsvetaevaMarina TsvetaevaMarina Ivanovna Tsvetaeva was a Russian and Soviet poet. Her work is considered among some of the greatest in twentieth century Russian literature. She lived through and wrote of the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the Moscow famine that followed it. In an attempt to save her daughter Irina from...
- Rosmarie WaldropRosmarie WaldropRosmarie Waldrop is a contemporary American poet, translator and publisher. Born in Germany, she has lived in the United States since 1958. She has lived in Providence, Rhode Island since the late 1960s...
- Anne WaldmanAnne WaldmanAnne Waldman is an American poet.Since the 1960s, Waldman has been an active member of the “Outrider” experimental poetry community as a writer, performer, collaborator, professor, editor, scholar, and cultural/political activist....
- Alice WalkerAlice WalkerAlice Malsenior Walker is an American author, poet, and activist. She has written both fiction and essays about race and gender...
- Phyllis WebbPhyllis WebbPhyllis Webb, is a Canadian poet and radio broadcaster. The Canadian Encyclopedia describes her as "a writer of stature in Canadian letters", and calls her work "brilliantly crafted, formal in its energies and humane in its concern"....
- Nellie WongNellie WongNellie Wong is a poet and activist for feminist and socialist causes.-Biography:Wong was born in Oakland, California to Chinese immigrants. Her father had immigrated to Oakland in 1912....
- Merle WooMerle WooMerle Woo has worked as a spokesperson, teacher, poet and activist throughout her life.-Biography:Merle Woo was born to a Korean mother and Chinese father, Helene Chang and Richard Woo, in San Francisco on October 24, 1941. She grew up in San Francisco’s Chinatown with her mother, a clerical...
- Judith WrightJudith WrightJudith Arundell Wright was an Australian poet, environmentalist and campaigner for Aboriginal land rights.-Biography:...
- Elinor WylieElinor WylieElinor Morton Wylie was an American poet and novelist popular in the 1920s and 1930s. "She was famous during her life almost as much for her ethereal beauty and personality as for her melodious, sensuous poetry."...
- Mitsuye YamadaMitsuye YamadaMitsuye Yamada is a Japanese American activist, feminist, essayist, poet, story writer, editor, and former professor of English.-Early and personal life:Mitsuye Yamada was born as Mitsuye Yasutake in Fukuoka, Japan...
See also poetry, list of poets, early-modern women poets (UK)