My aim is to include as many female poets as possible from all the countries involved in the First World War.
These are the poets I have found so far - the list grows daily and I hope to up-date it before too long. I would very much welcome your comments if you know of others – please get in touch on info@femalewarpoets.com. Thank you.
British:
Alice Mary Buckton (1867 – 1944 – emigrated to South Africa)
Charlotte Mew
Vera Brittain (Joined the VAD; served in France. Vera's brother was killed in Italy)
Jessie Pope (apparently Owen despised her poetry as being pro-war - she is the “my friend” of Dulce et Decorum est))
Winifred M. Letts
Ruth Comfort Mitchell
Alice Meynell
Iris Tree (Born London, Member Bloomsbury Group)
Madeline Ida Bedford
Eva Dobell
Marian Allen
Sybil Bristowe (Brother killed in early 1917)
Margaret Sackville (Lady)
May Herschel-Clarke
Edith Nesbit
Edith Sitwell (Dame – born in Scarborough)
Muriel Stewart (founded the P.E.N. Club in 1921)
Beatrice Bryce-Miller
Janet Begbie
Matilda Betham-Edwards
May Wedderburn Cannan (engaged to Bevil Quiller-Couch. MI5 – bought her fiance’s horse at the end of the War and brought it home after his untimely death)
Margaret Postgate Cole (Dame)
Eleanor Farjeon
Diana Gurney
Theresa Hooley
Nina Macdonald
Lucy Gertrude Moberley
May Sinclair (born in Rock Ferry – field ambulance – France 09.14. Invented 'Stream of Consciousness')
Lilian M. Anderson
Pauline Barrington
Maud Anna Bell
Nora Bornford
Isabel C. Clarke
Mary Gabrielle Collins
Alice Corbin
Nancy Cunard
Elizabeth Daryush (daughter of Robert Bridges)
Helen Dircks
Helen Parry Eden
Gabrielle Elliot
Elizabeth Chandler Forman
Lilian Gard
Muriel Elsie Graham
Nora Griffiths
Cicely Hamilton
Helen Hamilton
Ada M. Harrison
Mary H.J. Henderson (American living in England. Went with Elsa Inglis to establish and nurse in Field Hospitals in Russia and Serbia)
Agnes Grozier Herbertson (Norwegian?)
Teresa Hooley
Elinor Jenkins
Anna Gordon Keown
Margery Lawrence
Olive E. Lindsay
Amy Lowell
Eileen Newton
Eleanour Norton (The Hon.)
Carola Oman
Emily Orr
Inez Quilter (aged 11 years)
Dorothy Una Ratcliffe
Ursula Roberts (pen name Susan Miles)
Margaret Sackville (Lady)
Aimee Byng Scott (Lady)
Cicely Fox Smith (born in Lymm, Cheshire, Educated Manchester)
Marie Carmichael Stopes
Millicent Sutherland (French Red + and took private ambulance to France)
Aelfrida Tillyard
Alys Fane Trotter (went to live in South Africa)
Viviane Verne
Alberta Vickridge (served as a VAD nurse)
Mary Webb (born Wrekin, Shropshire. Educated Southport)
M. Winifred Wedgwood (served with the VADs as a maid)
Catherine Durning Whetham
Lucy Whitmell
Edith Bagnold - nurse
Marjorie Wilson
Louisa Prior
Marjorie Pratt
Storm Jameson
Katherine Mansfield
Rose Macaulay (Dame)
C.A.L.T
Dorothy Richardson
Carolyn Crosby Wilson
Dorothy L. Sayers
Margot Robert Adamson
Constance Renshaw
Dorothy Julie Baynes
Carolyn Crosby Wilson
O. Douglas (Pen name of Anna Masterfar Buchan - sister of John Buchan)
Dorothy Richardson
Vita Sackville-West
Georgette Agnew
Alice Maud
Marian Allen
Mary Elizabeth Boyle (Brother killed in opening stages of the War)
Mary G. Cherry
I. Helen Friedlaender
Alexandra Ethelreda Grantham (eldest son killed in WW1)
I. Grindley (served with Queen Mary’s Army Auxiliary Corps)
Irene Rutherford McLeod
Nina Mardel (served with the VADs)
Margaret Peterson
Constance Ada Renshaw
Ethel Scheffauer
Dorothy Margaret Stewart
Joan Thompson (served with the Red Cross in France)
Evelyn Underhill (SSAFA, Naval Intelligence)
Winifred Holtby (nursed in France)
German:
Else Lasker
Lya Mara
Hilde Domin
Anna Bahr-Hildenberg
Vicky Baum
(Clara Zetkin – founder of International Women’s Day)
Claire Goll (29.10.1890 – 30.05.77)
Berta Lask
Ilsa Franke (29.06.1881 – 03.02.1938)
Elizabeth Langgasser (23.2.1899 – 25.7.1950)
Elizabeth Paulsen
Thekla Lingen
Irish:
Helen Waddell (born in Ulster)
Katherine Tynan
Helen Waddell (Ulster born)
May O’Rourke (became secretary to Thomas Hardy in 1923)
Winifred M. Letts (Born in Ireland)
Eva Gore Booth (Pacifist - visited Conscientious objectors in prison and attended courts martial and tribunals)
Alice Mary Buckton
Russian:
Anna Akhmatova
Australian:
Mary Gilmore (Dame – 1865 – 1962)
Violet B. Cramer
Winsome Jennings
Agnes Rose-Soley – born in Scotland – moved to Australia
Dorothea McKellar
Mary Elizabeth Fullerton
Marion Knowles
Nellie Evans (The Remembered Valley – 1883 – 1944)
Zora Cross
American:
Gertrude Stein
Dorothy Parker
Marge Piercy
Harriet Monroe
Florence Ripley Mastin
Edna St. Vincent Millay
Sarah Teasdale
Lesbia Thanet - Pen Name…
Alice Corbin
Gabrielle Elliot
Amy Lowell
Ruth Comfort Mitchell
Helen Mackay
Margaret Adelaide Wilson
S. Gertrude Ford
Hilda Dolittle (pen name H.D.)
Marianne Moore
Moina Belle Michael (“The Miracle Flower” – she came up with the idea of poppies)
Natalie Clifford Barney (1876 – 1972)
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Helen Gray Cone (wrote “A chant of love for England” - to balance Ernst Lissauer’s “Hymn of Hate”)
Mary Carolyn Davies
Edith Grenstead Rochester
Marie Van Vorst
Mrs G.O. Warren
Margaret Widdamer
Mary Borden (Lived in England. Went with mobile Hospital to nurse in France)
Katherine Lee Bates (“America the Beautiful”)
Pauline Barrington
Elizabeth Robins Pennell
Lena Gilbert Brown Ford (Lyricist who wrote the lyrics for “Keep the Home Fires Burning – music written by Ivor Novello – she lived in London during WW1 and with her son was one of the first American casualties of the German Bombing raids on London on 7th March 1918)
Belgian:
Marie Nizet (1859 – 1922)
French:
Lucie Delarue-Mardrus – 03.11.1874 – 26.4.1945
Marguerite Durand (Ed. “La Fronde”)
Colette Yver
Miriam Harry (Maria Rosette Shapira)
Rosemonde Gerard (1886 – 1953)
Marie Dauguet (1860 – 1942)
Gerard d’Houville (nom de plume) (1875 – 1963)
Anna de Noailles (1876 – 1933)
Cecile Perin (1877 – 1959)
Amelie Murat (1882 – 1940)
Cecile Sauvage (1883 – 1927)
Lise Deharme (1898? – 1980)
Louisa Paulin (1888 – 1944)
Canadian:
Mary Josephine Trotter Benson (1887 – 1965)
Jean Blewett (1872 – 1934)
Helena Jane Coleman
Susan Frances Harrison
Marie Joussaye Fotheringham
Lucy Maud Montgomery
Mary Riter Hamilton (Artist who recorded the aftermath of WW1 in Flanders, spending 3 years painting pictures of the aftermath, living in a tin hut, while the Chinese workers cleared up the mess left by the War.)
New Zealand:
Katherine Mansfield (1888 – 1923)
South African:
Edith L.M. King (Pietermaritsburg 1871 – 1962)
Portuguese:
Florbela Espanca
Fernanda de Castro
Marta Mesquita de Camara
Virginía Vitorino
