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Legends
This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.
276 pages, Paperback
First published May 1, 2004
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About the author
Amy Lowell
191 books87 followersA leader of the imagists, American poet Amy Lawrence Lowell wrote several volumes, including
Sword Blades and Poppy Seed
(1914).
A mother bore Amy into a prominent family. Percival Lowell, her brother and a famous astronomer, predicted the existence of the dwarf planet Pluto; Abbott Lawrence Lowell, another brother, served as president of Harvard University.
The Lowell family deemed not proper attendance at college for a woman, who instead compensated with her avid reading to nearly obsessive book collecting. She lived as a socialite and traveled widely; a performance of Eleonora Duse in Europe inspired her, who afterward turned in 1902. In 1910, Atlantic Monthly first published her work.
She published A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass , apparently first collection, in 1912. In 1912, rumors swirled that supposedly lesbian Lowell reputedly lusted for actress Ada Dwyer Russell, her patron. Her more erotic work subjected Russell. The two women traveled together to England, where Lowell met Ezra Pound, a major influence at once and a major critic of her work. Mercedes de Acosta romantically linked Lowell despite the brief correspondence about a memorial for Duse that never took place, the only evidence that they knew each other.
Lowell, an imposing figure, kept her hair in a bun and wore a pince-nez. She smoked constantly and claimed that cigars lasted longer than cigarettes. A glandular problem kept her perpetually overweight, so that Witter Bynner once called her a "hippopoetess," and Ezra Pound repeated this cruel comment. Her works also criticized French literature, and she penned a biography of John Keats.
People well record fetish of Lowell for Keats. Pound thought merely of a rich woman, who ably assisted financially the publication and afterwards made "exile" towards vorticism. Lowell early adhered to the "free verse" method.
Lowell died of a cerebral hemorrhage at the age of 51 years. In the following year of 1926, people awarded her the posthumous Pulitzer Prize for What's O'Clock . People forgot her works for years, but focus on lesbian themes, collection of love, addressed to Ada Dwyer Russell, and personification of inanimate objects, such as in The Green Bowl , The Red Lacquer Music Stand , and Patterns caused a resurgence of interest.
A mother bore Amy into a prominent family. Percival Lowell, her brother and a famous astronomer, predicted the existence of the dwarf planet Pluto; Abbott Lawrence Lowell, another brother, served as president of Harvard University.
The Lowell family deemed not proper attendance at college for a woman, who instead compensated with her avid reading to nearly obsessive book collecting. She lived as a socialite and traveled widely; a performance of Eleonora Duse in Europe inspired her, who afterward turned in 1902. In 1910, Atlantic Monthly first published her work.
She published A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass , apparently first collection, in 1912. In 1912, rumors swirled that supposedly lesbian Lowell reputedly lusted for actress Ada Dwyer Russell, her patron. Her more erotic work subjected Russell. The two women traveled together to England, where Lowell met Ezra Pound, a major influence at once and a major critic of her work. Mercedes de Acosta romantically linked Lowell despite the brief correspondence about a memorial for Duse that never took place, the only evidence that they knew each other.
Lowell, an imposing figure, kept her hair in a bun and wore a pince-nez. She smoked constantly and claimed that cigars lasted longer than cigarettes. A glandular problem kept her perpetually overweight, so that Witter Bynner once called her a "hippopoetess," and Ezra Pound repeated this cruel comment. Her works also criticized French literature, and she penned a biography of John Keats.
People well record fetish of Lowell for Keats. Pound thought merely of a rich woman, who ably assisted financially the publication and afterwards made "exile" towards vorticism. Lowell early adhered to the "free verse" method.
Lowell died of a cerebral hemorrhage at the age of 51 years. In the following year of 1926, people awarded her the posthumous Pulitzer Prize for What's O'Clock . People forgot her works for years, but focus on lesbian themes, collection of love, addressed to Ada Dwyer Russell, and personification of inanimate objects, such as in The Green Bowl , The Red Lacquer Music Stand , and Patterns caused a resurgence of interest.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
August 2, 2025
Amy Lowell was an important poet who modernized poetry with her imagist style and was a kind of activist for poetry. Legends was Amy Lowell’s last book, published in 1921.
In her preface she writes, “A legend is something which nobody has written and everybody has written, and which anybody is at liberty to rewrite. It may be altered, it may be viewed from any angle, it may assume what dress the author pleases, yet it remains essentially the same because it is attached to the very fibres of the heart of man.”
The facsimile of Legends is available free on the internet.
To learn more about Amy Lowell read the Poetry Foundation’s bio of her.
Born in 1874 and died in 1925, Amy Lowell won the Pulitzer Prize the year after she died. She lived a bold, cugar-smoking life and wrote some great lesbian erotic poetry.
She must have been an amazing woman. In 1912 she fell in love with actress Ada Russell who became her partner and muse until Amy died. Amy Lowell’s style is concise and haiku-like and Ada helped her greatly with her work.
It’s exciting to have Legends available in its original form. In the preface Amy Lowell wrote about what poetry is-a reworking, a recreation of what the poet has heard and read and experienced. Poets cannot trace their sources—all in a mix and a poem is born.
“A poet is the most contradictory creature imaginable, he respects nothing and reveres everything, but what he loves he makes his own. And this then is just the touchstone of the true legend, it can be made over in any image, but always remains itself.”
First page—
MEMORANDUM CONFIDED BY A
YUCCA TO A PASSION-VINE
The Turkey-buzzard was chatting with the Condor
High up in the White Cordillera.
“ Surely our friend the fox is mad,” said he.
“He chases birds no more and his tail trails languidly
Behind him in the dust.
Why, he got it full of cactus-spines one day,
Pawing over a plant that stood in his way.
All the bees are buzzing about it.
Consider a fox who passes by the great hives of sharp,
black honey
And looks at them no more than a heron would.”
“Odd,” said the Condor. “Remarkably peculiar.”
And he flapped his wings and flew away to the
porcelain peaks of the distant Sierra.
In her preface she writes, “A legend is something which nobody has written and everybody has written, and which anybody is at liberty to rewrite. It may be altered, it may be viewed from any angle, it may assume what dress the author pleases, yet it remains essentially the same because it is attached to the very fibres of the heart of man.”
The facsimile of Legends is available free on the internet.
To learn more about Amy Lowell read the Poetry Foundation’s bio of her.
Born in 1874 and died in 1925, Amy Lowell won the Pulitzer Prize the year after she died. She lived a bold, cugar-smoking life and wrote some great lesbian erotic poetry.
She must have been an amazing woman. In 1912 she fell in love with actress Ada Russell who became her partner and muse until Amy died. Amy Lowell’s style is concise and haiku-like and Ada helped her greatly with her work.
It’s exciting to have Legends available in its original form. In the preface Amy Lowell wrote about what poetry is-a reworking, a recreation of what the poet has heard and read and experienced. Poets cannot trace their sources—all in a mix and a poem is born.
“A poet is the most contradictory creature imaginable, he respects nothing and reveres everything, but what he loves he makes his own. And this then is just the touchstone of the true legend, it can be made over in any image, but always remains itself.”
First page—
MEMORANDUM CONFIDED BY A
YUCCA TO A PASSION-VINE
The Turkey-buzzard was chatting with the Condor
High up in the White Cordillera.
“ Surely our friend the fox is mad,” said he.
“He chases birds no more and his tail trails languidly
Behind him in the dust.
Why, he got it full of cactus-spines one day,
Pawing over a plant that stood in his way.
All the bees are buzzing about it.
Consider a fox who passes by the great hives of sharp,
black honey
And looks at them no more than a heron would.”
“Odd,” said the Condor. “Remarkably peculiar.”
And he flapped his wings and flew away to the
porcelain peaks of the distant Sierra.
Displaying 1 of 1 review