Bryher (1894 - 1983) - British

Bryher was the pen name of Annie Winifred ELLERMAN, who was born in Margate.   Annie’s Mother was Hannah Glover and her Father was John Ellerman, the shipping magnate.  The shipping lines Ellerman and Hall and Ellerman Papayani were well known to me, for my Father worked as a fumigator in the port of Liverpool.  When John Ellerman died in 1933 he was the richest Englishman ever.

During her childhood, Annie travelled with her family on the continent of Europe and in North Africa.   She was sent to boarding school when she was fourteen.  

In 1918, Bryher met and began a relationship with American poet Hilda Dolittle, who was known by her initials – H.D. During the 1920s Bryher travelled to Paris where she met writers Ernest Hemingway, James Joyce, Robert McAlmon, Kenneth Macpherson and Gertrude Stein, publisher Sylvia Beach and photographer Berenice Abbott. 

As she was independently wealthy, Bryher was able to help struggling writers, poets and artists.  In 1921, she married Robert McAlmon but the couple divorced in 1927.  Bryher then married Kenneth Macpherson – they were both passionate about films – and they built a Bauhaus-style house/film studio in Switzerland, which they called Kenwin.  In 1927 Bryner, Macpherson and H.D. founded the film magazine “Close Up”. 

During the 1930s Kenwin became a centre for refugees and she helped at least a hundred people escape from Nazi rule before she returned to England in 1940. 

Bryhers’ poetry anthologies are “Region of Lutany”, published in 1914 and “Arrow Music” published in 1922.   She wrote novels and works of non-fiction and both Bryher and H.D. appeared in one of the films made by their film company The Pool Group.

Bryher died in 1983.

NOTE:  Bryher is the name of the smallest of the inhabited Isles of Scilly.

Source:  Wikipedia

Lilian Bowes Lyon (1895 - 1949) - British

Lilian was born at Ridley Hall in Northumberland on 23rd December 1895 and began writing poetry at an early age.

During The First World War, both Lilian and her cousin Elizabeth, who went on to become Queen Elizabeth, wife of King George VI, helped look after wounded soldiers at Glamis Castle, which her Uncle Claude had inherited in 1904 on the death of her grandfather, the 13th Earl of Strathmore.   

Lilian's brother, Charles, an officer in the Black Watch Regiment, was killed on the Western Front on 23rd October 1914.

WW1 Red Cross Record Card

Lilian's care of the wounded continued in the Second World War, when she lived in Stepney in the East End of London and took care of the victims of bombing raids.

Lilian wrote seven collections of poetry and two novels, never married and continued writing poetry until her death in 1949.

According to Catherine W. Reilly in "English Poetry of the First World War: A Bibliography" (St. Martin's Press, New York, 1978) pp205 - 206, Lilian Bowes Lyon's WW1 poetry collection were: 

"Bright feather fading, and other poems" (Cape, London 1936) and

"Collected Poems with an introduction by C. Day Lewis" (Cape, London, 1948).  Lilian also had one of her poems included in the WW1 poetry anthology "The Fiery Cross: an anthology" (Grant Richards, London, 1915) which was edited by Mabel C. Edwards and Mary Booth and sold in aid of the Red Cross.

“The Hedge-Row Story” by Lilian Bowes-Lyon

When fields here lose their colour, when the wood
Trailing a hoary wing turns home
To raven night, I reckon up the sum
Of rustic evil and clay-spattered good.

I think of the innumerable slow lives whose history
Differs a hair’s breadth from the hedgw-row story :
Thorns in black competition, the roped glory
Of gossamer, soon gone,
With berries dipped in blood.

When fields here lose the light, I fear the mystery
Of men like trees, that tower but touch the sky
They cannot and are felled one by one,
I think of saint and scarecrow schooled to die ;
Their leafless victory stands, where nothing stood.

From  p. 250 “Poems of our Time 1900 – 1942” chosen by Richard Church and M.M. Bozman (J.M. Dent & Sons Ltd., London, 1945

A contact of mine recently sent me a handwritten poem entitled "Emblems" by WW1 poet Lilian Bowes Lyon, who we featured in “Female Poets of the First World War Volume Two”.  I thought you might like to see it. 

My contact says:

“The poem comes from a guest book that originally belonged to a well to do family called the McEwens who owned the Bardrochat Estate in Colmonell, Ayrshire. They also owned Marchmont House near Duns. Many guests wrote in the book which is titled "An Edwardian Diary". 

The book made its way from Ayrshire through to Duns on the East coast and at some point the family must have had a clear-out. It was after this that a gentleman called Richard Jackson found the book in a Junk shop in Duns and bought it. 

When we started doing our research into the Fallen of WW1 from Colmonell, Richard contacted us about a poem called "A Candid Opinion" that was written by the game-keeper’s son William Fox Ritchie, who died in September 1918. Willie wrote the poem in the book whilst home re-cooperating from severe frostbite.”

And Richard Jackson kindly sent me the following WW1 poem by Lilian:

“Battlefield” by Lilian bowes-Lyon

Men in their prime,
Boys venerably young
With all-unfaded brows, died here upon a time,
So heavy a wrong
How may this black world right who trod them into slime.

Still must our milder suns,
Splintering the stained-glass window of a wood,
Be darkly seen through these men’s blood
And midnight mutter in her sleep with guns.

Photograph of Lilian kindly sent to me by Michael Shankland.

With thanks to Joe Staines for pointing out typos which I hope have now been corrected. 

Marguerite Coppin (1867 - 1931) - Belgium

Who says Facebook is a waste of time!   Having recently started a Facebook Page for Female Poets of the First World War, I am indebted to Sabine Declercq Couwet who, I believe, runs a battlefield tour company, for suggesting I look at the work of Marguerie Coppin, a Belgian poet.   Thank you Sabine!

I shall try to find poems and photographs to go with Marguerite's details.

MARGUERITE COPPIN  (1867 – 1931) – BELGIAN

Marguerite Copin was born on 2^nd February 1867 in Brussels.

She became Belgium’s Poet Laureate and was active in promoting women’s rights.

When war broke out in 1914, Marguerite was among the refugees who were evacuated to England where she worked as a French teacher and remained until her death in 1931.

May Ziade (1886 - 1941) The Lebanon

During the First World Waar, The Lebanon was part of the Ottoman Empire and controlled by the Syrians.  Beirut was the centre of several different movements advocating reform which sent delegates to a Franco-Syrian Conference held in Paris.

May Ziade was born in Nazareth in Palestine.  Her father, Elias Ziade from The Lebanon, was a newspaper editor and her mother was Palestinian.  In 1908 the family went to live in Egypt and May had several articles published in her Father's paper.  Her first independent published anthology "Fleurs de rêve" was written in French under the pen name Isis Copia.

May was well-known in literary circles and began holding literary salons (where like minded people gathered to discuss and read their work) which were supported by many writers and intellectuals of the day.

May, who never married, went on to support the notion of emancipation of Arab women, organising a conference in 1921 calling upon Arab women to aspire toward freedom and to be aware of western ways without sacrificing their own identity.   May died in Cairo in October 1941.

With thanks to Suzanne Daou a modern Lebanese writer and translator who suggested I research May.

Marie Nizet - Belgium

I have tried to include poets from as many countries of the world as possible in this project.  I am still looking for a woman poet from Luxembourg, Thailand and African countries.   If anyone knows of any, please get in touch so that we can let their voices be heard.

Great Britain entered the First World War because Belgium was invaded by German troops and we had given an undertaking in order to preserve Belgium's neutrality that we would defend her should she be invaded (Treaty of London 1839).

Marie Nizet is so far the only poet I have found from Belgium who was alive during the First World War.  Having mentioned Belgium and a Belgian Secret Agent on www.inspirationalwomenofww1.blogspot.co.uk today, I felt I ought to mention a Belgian poet here.

Mariet was born in Brussels in 1859.  Her Father worked at the Royal Library in Belgium.  While studying in Paris, Marie met some fellow students from Romania which kindled her interest in Romanian mythology.  At the age of 19, Marie published her first book "Captain Vampire".   She married and had a son, divorced and brought her son up alone.   Marie died in Etterbeek in 1922.

With grateful thanks to Peter Parsley who lives in Belgium who found the photograph of Marie Nizet for me.

Bing Xin - China

BING XIN (1900 – 1999) – CHINA

I have included Bing Xin in this project in order to illustrate the role of China in the First World War.   The Chinese Labour Corps was created by the British Government in order to work behind the scenes and thus leaving the troops to get on with the fighting.

Bing Xin, who is featured in Female Poets of the First World War Volume 1, was born on 5^th December 1900 in Fuzhou, Fujan,, China.  Her family moved to Shandong when she was four years old.   In 1913, they moved to Beijing where she wrote for her school magazine and published her first novel.

After a long and distinguished career as a writer, Bing Xin died in Beijing on 28^th February 1999.

“The mirror

Reflects me face to face.

However, I feel it to be unnatural.

Better to turn it around!”

From “Infinite Stars” by Bing Xin, first published in 1921.

Lou Albert-Lasard (1885 - 1969) - Germany

I am very grateful indeed to Penelope Monkhouse from Germany who has sent me biographies of several German women poets of WW1.

Penelope Monkhouse (*1952) is a German-British scientist living in Schwetzingen/Germany and is a granddaughter of the novelist, dramatist and literary critic Allan Monkhouse. Literature of the early 20^thcentury is presently one of her chief non-scientific interests; she is presently engaged on a comparative study of German and English poetry of this period. She also writes poetry of her own and translates poetry to and from German and English. 

Lou Albert-Lasard (1885 - 1969) 

Born in 1885 in Metz in Lorraine, which was then part of the German Empire, was an expressionist painter from a Jewish banker’s family. Her sister Ilse Heller-Lasard (1884-1934) was also an artist. In the years 1908-1912 Lou studied art in Munich, where she met members of the “Blue Rider” expressionist group (e.g. Alexei Jawlensky, Marianne Werefkin). From 1912 she worked in the Atelier of Ferdinand Léger in Paris. 

Against her parent’s wishes, Lou married the chemist and inventor Eugène Albert (1856-1929) in 1909 and had a daughter Ingeborg (Ingo) (1911-1997). The marriage was short-lived and in September 1914, shortly after returning to Germany on the outbreak of war, she began an affair with the poet Rainer Maria Rilke and spent part of the time until 1916 with him in Munich and Vienna. Both were deeply disturbed by the onset of the First World War and Lou recorded her feelings in a poem entitled “Kriegsausbruch” (Outbreak of War). 

She also painted a portrait of Rilke in July 1916.  Through him she became acquainted with writers and artists such as Annette Kolb, Franz Werfel, Stefan Zweig and Paul Klee. After moving to Berlin in 1919, Lou joined the newly formed expressionist November group. In 1928 she settled in Paris and became part of the artist’s group in the Quartier Montparnasse. Here she met Henri Matisse, Alberto Giacometti among others. 

With her daughter, Lou Albert-Lasard travelled in North Africa, India, Tibet and elsewhere. Drawings and watercolours brought from these journeys were exhibited from 1939. In May 1940 she and Ingo were interned in Gurs, but released three months later. During her time in Gurs she made drawings and watercolours showing portraits of fellow prisoners and scenes from the camp life. After her release she returned to Paris. In the 1950´s she again travelled with her daughter and made watercolours and lithographs, recording her impressions.   She died in Paris in 1969.

References:

Nicole Schneegans: Une image de Lou. Collection Page Blanche, Gallimard 1996. 

Lou Albert-Lasard: Gemälde, Aquarelle, Grafik. Berlinische Galerie, Berlin 1983

Lou Albert-Lasard: Wege mit Rilke (Memoir), Fischer Taschenbuchverlag, Frankfurt/Main 1952

http://www.fembio.org/biographie.php/frau/biographie/lou-albert-lasard/  accessed 14.8.2012