In 1946 Edith Sitwell complained of having no women role models, something it would be hard to protest about today in the poetry world. The variety of female influences now available to aspiring poets is clearly demonstrated in this new anthology by Deryn Rees-Jones.

However, Elizabeth Bishop, a writer increasingly cited as a profound 20 th century influence by both men and women, is only represented here by a small editorial comment. She left instructions that her poetry should never be anthologised according to gender. Given Bishop’s resistance, what is gained from seeing women’s poetry collected in this way?

I must admit to initial prejudice, fearing that the book would be padded out with lesser-known poets whose work might not stand up when compared with their lauded peers. In fact, it was a pleasure to see work of such high quality from people I had never heard of, and to see such a range of subject matter and style. Without volume like this, it would be difficult to make such discoveries, and to put them in their historical context.

The passionate clarity of Rosemary Tonks’ writing, for example, made me want to see more of her work,

It’s also heartening to see poets like H.D., Sharon Olds, Carol Ann Duffy and Anne Stevenson, who would make an appearance in any comprehensive twentieth century anthology, getting their due weighting.

Charlotte Mew’s dramatic monologue “The Farmer’s Bride” kicks off the collection, a work of delicate empathy and attention. Rees-Jones claims that women have found this form particularly useful in allowing them to side-step anxieties about speaking or writing in public. It is hard to make the argument that women in the last hundred years have been more likely to use the dramatic monologue than men however, and it seems there’s nothing anxious or timid about Mew’s lyric poems. “The Trees Are Down”, written in 1929, still seems fresh and apposite:

It is not for a moment the Spring is unmade today;

These were great trees, it was in them from root to stem:

when the men with the ‘Whoops and the ‘Whoas’ have carted the whole of the whispering loveliness away

Half the Spring, for me will have gone with them.

In Rees-Jones’ introduction she refers to the perceptions of women’s writing to which earlier poets in the anthology were responding. Sitwell configures this as women either feeling “too much” or “too little”.

This may account for the coolness of a significant proportion of the work. To a certain extent women started the century writing with a sense of what was or was not expected of them, and sited themselves reactively within that spectrum. By the end of the collection we encounter young poets such as Sinead Morrisey, whose “Genetics” is an example of a poem with a strong sentiment which seems to have been written without fear of appearing sentimental.

It might not be too optimistic to suggest that women are indeed experiencing a greater sense of freedom, the freedom to write in whichever emotional register seems appropriate to the poem. The discerning eye of Deryn Rees-Jones has made this a surprising and substantial anthology.

  Faith Lawrence, originally from London, is on sabbatical from her job as a radio producer with the BBC. Currently, she is studying for the M.Litt in Creative Writing at the University of St Andrews.