Amy Lowell was born in Brookline, Massachusetts, in 1874, into Modern Britain family. Her brother, Percival Lowell, was a well-known cosmologist, whereas another brother, Abbott Lawrence Lowell, got to be president of Harvard College. Growing up Lowell went to private schools in between visits to Europe with her family and, at the age of 17, started a tireless process of teaching herself in the seven thousand-volume library at Sevenels, which was said to be the Lowell family seat in Brookline where she would too live as a grown-up. In the summer of 1910, at the age of 36, Lowell saw her first poem published in the Atlantic. The poems name was, “Fixed Idea,” other sonnets and poems of hers showed up frequently in different periods of her life span.

“Fixed Idea,” was a 14 lined poem where Lowell spoke of letting someone go. A few lines of the poem showed that the poem is about a close connection between herself and another being.

“You lie upon my heart as on a nest,

Folded in peace, for you can never know

How crushed I am with having you at rest”

Her poem set the tone for the rest of her poetic career. Having published well over 150 bodies of work she is deemed as a very vocal poet of her time. After landing her fist published body of work and beginning her career as a poet when she was well into her 30s and Lowell became an enthusiastic and aimed gain disciple of the art. In 1913, Lowell adapted a new style of poetry that we learn about today called, “Imagism” which was dominated by Ezra Pound. Imagism is defined as being borrowed from both English and American verse styles. The use of imagism created a new Anglo-American literary movement that captured the pure expression of poetry in the most direct way. The primary Imagists were said to be Pound, Ford Madox Ford, H.D. (Hilda Doolittle), and Richard Aldington

 When asked others in the movement they spoke highly and believed in Lowell’s words and talents. “Concentration is of the very essence of poetry” and strove to “produce poetry that is hard and clear, never blurred nor indefinite,” Lowell said. She worked and fought for the success of Imagist poetry in America and even added embraced its principles in her own work. She acted as a publicity agent for the movement, editing and contributing to an anthology of Imagist poets in 1915. As Lowell continued to explore the Imagist style, she pioneered the use of “polyphonic prose” in English, mixing formal verse and free forms.

Lowell, is described as a vivacious and outspoken businesswoman, tended to excite controversy. Her enthusiastic involvement and influence contributed to Pound’s separation from the imagism movement. Later in her poetic career she was drawn to and heavily influenced by Chinese and Japanese poetry. This interest led her to collaborate with translator Florence Ayscough on Fir-Flower Tablets in 1921.

Amongst many poems of hers that stood out to me like, “The End,” “Fragment,” “At Night,” “Apology,” “Hero-Worship,” “A Japanese Wood-Carving,” and “A Blockhead” her very fist poem stood out to me because it showed her raw talents with little to other influence.