Laura Riding

Laura Riding was an American poet, critic, and author born on January 16, 1901, and she passed away on September 2, 1991. She was known for her avant-garde style and her complex, intellectual approach to poetry. Riding was also a significant figure in 20th-century American literary circles, particularly in the modernist movement. Her work often focused on themes of language, human experience, and the complexities of communication.

In addition to her poetry, Riding wrote essays, fiction, and plays, but she is perhaps most noted for her distinct, somewhat controversial departure from mainstream American literature. Over time, she distanced herself from the literary scene and even abandoned poetry for a period, turning to writing essays and other forms of literary criticism.

Her legacy as a poet has remained significant among those interested in the more experimental and innovative elements of 20th-century poetry. Would you like more specific details about her works or life?

Articles by the author

Because most people are not sufficiently employed in themselves, they run about loose, hungering for employment, and satisfy themselves in various supererogatory occupations. The easiest of these occupations, which have all to do with making things already made, is the making of people: it is called the art of friendship.

Laura Riding

Poetry brings all possible experience to the same degree: a degree in the consciousness beyond which the consciousness itself cannot go.

Laura Riding

The end of poetry is not to create a physical condition which shall give pleasure to the mind... The end of poetry is not an after-effect, not a pleasurable memory of itself, but an immediate, constant and even unpleasant insistence upon itself.

Laura Riding

To a poet the mere making of a poem can seem to solve the problem of truth, but only a problem of art is solved in poetry.

Laura Riding