Elizabeth Jennings was one of the most popular, prolific, and
widely anthologized lyric poets in the second half of the twentieth
century. This first biography, based on extensive archival research
and interviews with Jennings's contemporaries, integrates her life
and work and explores the 'inward war' the poet experienced as a
result of her gender, religion, and mental fragility. Originally
associated with the Movement, Jennings was sui generis, believing
poetry was 'communication' and 'communion.' She wrote of nature,
friendship, childhood, religion, love, and art, endearing her to a
wide audience. Yet lifelong depression, unbearable loneliness,
unrelenting fears, poverty, and physical illness plagued her. These
were exacerbated by her gender in a male-dominated literary world
and an inherited Catholic worldview which initially inculcated
guilt and shame. However, a tenacious drive to be a poet made her,
'the most unconditionally loved writer of her generation.' Although
her claim was that the poem is not the poet, her life is tracked in
her voluminous published and unpublished poetry and prose. The
themes of mental illness, the importance of place, the problems
associated with being an unmarried woman artist, her relationship
with literary mentors and younger poets, her non-feminist feminism,
and her marginality and sympathy for the outcast are all explored.
It was poetry which saved her; it helped her push back darkness and
discover order in the midst of chaos. Poetry was her raison d'etre.
It was her life.
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