Genevieve Taggard
Genevieve Taggard (1894-1948) was an influential American poet, editor, and educator known for her lyrical and politically charged works. Born in Waitsburg, Washington, she experienced a challenging childhood marked by poverty and family instability due to her father's health issues. These early experiences informed her leftist political views and shaped her poetry. Taggard began publishing her poetry in her teens and went on to study at the University of California, Berkeley, where she developed her craft under notable influences.
She published her first collection, "For Eager Lovers," in 1922 after moving to New York and marrying fellow writer Robert L. Wolf. Throughout her career, she published multiple poetry collections and edited a literary journal, demonstrating her commitment to both literature and left-wing political engagement. Taggard held teaching positions at several prestigious colleges, including Mount Holyoke and Sarah Lawrence, while also writing a well-received biography of Emily Dickinson.
Her later works reflected her evolving perspectives and continued engagement with contemporary issues until her untimely death. Although she is often primarily recognized for her biography of Dickinson, Taggard's poetry remains significant and has been revisited in modern literary discussions. Collections of her papers are preserved in major libraries, ensuring her contributions to literature and politics are not forgotten.
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Genevieve Taggard
Poet
- Born: November 28, 1894
- Birthplace: Waitsburg, Washington
- Died: November 8, 1948
Biography
Lyrical and political poet and editor Genevieve Taggard was born on November 28, 1894, in Waitsburg, Washington, the eldest of three children; her parents were schoolteachers and missionaries Alta Gale (Arnold) and James Nelson Taggard. When she was two, Taggard’s family moved to Hawaii and worked at a school at Kalihiwaena. However, her father’s recurrent illnesses forced the family to move back and forth between Waitsburg and Hawaii, and their poverty and mistreatment at this time left an impression on Taggard later expressed in her leftist political sympathies and poetry. Her first published poem, “Mitchie-Gawa,” appeared in a school newspaper, the Oahuan, in 1910, and in Waitsburg she was the editor of Crimson and Gray, her high school paper.
While continuing to publish occasional poems, Taggard entered the University of California at Berkeley, studying poetry with Witter Bynner, and graduated in 1920. A socialist when she left college, Taggard moved to New York and worked with publisher B. W. Huebsch. On March 21, 1921, she married Robert L. Wolf, a fellow writer, and in 1922 the couple had their daughter, Marcia, Taggard’s only child. Taggard’s first volume of poetry, For Eager Lovers, was also published in 1922. The family had moved to California and become more involved in left-wing politics, but in 1923 traveled back to the East Coast, to Preston, Connecticut. Over the next few years, Taggard published two other collections and edited others; her Traveling Standing Still: Poems, 1918-1928 came out in 1928.
Taggard had founded and edited a journal, The Measure (1920-1926); she then received a teaching position in English literature at Mount Holyoke College until 1931, when she began teaching at Bennington College in 1932. Her well-received biography, The Life and Mind of Emily Dickinson, was published in 1930. Taggard lived in France for a time on a Guggenheim Memorial Foundation fellowship for creative writing abroad and published another retrospective in 1934, Not Mine to Finish: Poems, 1928-1934. In 1935 she began teaching at Sarah Lawrence College, where she remained until 1946.
Having divorced her first husband in 1934, Taggard married Kenneth Durant, a representative for the Soviet news agency Tass, on March 10, 1935. Settling on a farm in East Jamaica, Vermont, Taggard’s anger over local political conditions led to the publication of her collection Calling Western Union in 1936. Other volumes, showing the influence of Wallace Stevens upon Taggard, followed until illness led to her early death, on November 8, 1948.
Although Taggard is often remembered today as the author of the Dickinson biography, her poetry has received continued attention. The Complete Works of Genevieve Taggard was released on microfilm in 1974 and To the Natural World in 1980. Taggard’s work was also featured and reanalyzed in Women Poets on the Left, published in 2001. Collections of her papers are held at the New York Public Library and at the Dartmouth College Library.