= Sara_Teasdale =

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= Sara_Teasdale =
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Introduction
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Sara Trevor Teasdale (later Filsinger; August 8, 1884January 29, 1933)
was an American lyric poet. She was born in St. Louis, Missouri, and
used the name Filsinger after her 1914 marriage. In 1918, she won a
Pulitzer Prize for her 1917 poetry collection 'Love Songs'.

Biography
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Sara Teasdale was born on August 8, 1884. She had poor health for much
of her childhood, so she was home schooled until age 9. It was at age
10 that she was well enough to begin school. She started at Mary
Institute in 1898, but switched to Hosmer Hall in 1899, graduating in
1903. The Teasdale family lived at 3668 Lindell Blvd. and then 38
Kingsbury Place in St. Louis, Missouri. Both homes were designed by
Sara's mother. The house on Kingsbury Place had a private suite for
Sara on the second floor. Guests entered through a separate entrance
and were admitted by appointment. This suite is where Sara worked,
slept, and often dined alone.

From 1904 to 1907, Teasdale was a member of The Potters, led by Lillie
Rose Ernst, a group of female artists in their late teens and early
twenties who published, from 1904 to 1907, 'The Potter's Wheel,' a
monthly artistic and literary magazine in St. Louis.

Teasdale's first poem was published in William Marion Reedy's 'Reedy's
Mirror', a local newspaper, in 1907. Her first collection of poems,
'Sonnets to Duse and Other Poems', was published that same year.

Teasdale's second collection, 'Helen of Troy and Other Poems', was
published in 1911. It was well received by critics, who praised its
lyrical mastery and romantic subject matter.

From 1911 to 1914 Teasdale was courted by several men, including the
poet Vachel Lindsay, who was truly in love with her but did not feel
that he could provide enough money or stability to keep her satisfied.
She chose to marry Ernst Filsinger, a longtime admirer of her poetry,
on December 19, 1914.

Teasdale's third poetry collection, 'Rivers to the Sea', was published
in 1915. It was and is a bestseller, being reprinted several times. In
1916 she and Filsinger moved to New York City, where they lived in an
Upper West Side apartment on Central Park West.

In 1918 she won a Pulitzer Prize for her 1917 poetry collection 'Love
Songs'. It was "made possible by a special grant from The Poetry
Society"; however, the sponsoring organization now lists it as the
earliest Pulitzer Prize for Poetry (inaugurated 1922).

Filsinger's constant business travel caused Teasdale much loneliness.
In 1929, she moved interstate for three months, thereby satisfying the
criterion to gain a divorce. She did not wish to inform Filsinger,
only doing so at her lawyers' insistence as the divorce was going
through. Filsinger was shocked. After the divorce she moved only two
blocks from her old home on Central Park West. She rekindled her
friendship with Vachel Lindsay, who was now married with children.

In 1933, she died by suicide, overdosing on sleeping pills. Lindsay
had died by suicide two years earlier. She is interred in
Bellefontaine Cemetery in St. Louis.

Teasdale's suicide and "I Shall Not Care"
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A common urban legend surrounds Teasdale's suicide. The poem "I Shall
Not Care" was speculated to be her suicide note because of its
depressing undertone. The legend claims that her poem "I Shall Not
Care" (which features themes of abandonment, bitterness, and
contemplation of death) was penned as a suicide note to a former
lover. However, the poem was actually first published in her 1915
collection 'Rivers to the Sea', a full 18 years before her suicide:

;I Shall Not Care
WHEN I am dead and over me bright April
::Shakes out her rain-drenched hair,
:Tho' you should lean above me broken-hearted,
:::I shall not care.

I shall have peace, as leafy trees are peaceful
:::When rain bends down the bough,
:And I shall be more silent and cold-hearted
:::Than you are now.

Legacy and influence
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* The poem "There Will Come Soft Rains" from her 1920 collection
'Flame and Shadow' inspired and is featured in a famous short story of
the same name by Ray Bradbury.
* Teasdale is the favorite poet of Arlington LeGrande, the main
character of Jacquelyn Mitchard's novel 'The Most Wanted'.
* Teasdale's poems "The New Moon", "Only in Sleep" and "Stars" were
set as choral pieces by Ēriks Ešenvalds, a Latvian composer, for
Musica Baltica.
*"I Shall Not Care" from the 1915 'Collected Poems' appeared in the
1966 young adult novel 'Up a Road Slowly' by Irene Hunt.
*She was a major influence on academic Marion Cummings.
*Amy Beach (1867-1944) set Teasdale's poem "Dusk in June" to music.
*Amy Aldrich Worth (1888-1967) set Teasdale's poem "Pierrot's Song" to
music.
*Dagmar de Corval Rybner (1890-1965) used Teasdale's poems for her
songs "Pastorale", "Pierrot", and "Swans".
*In 1932, Mildred Lund Tyson set Teasdale's poem "Like Barley Bending"
to music.
*In 1937, the poet Orrick Glenday Johns wrote of her passing in his
book, "Time of Our Lives: The Story of My Father and Myself".
* In 1967 Tom Rapp and the group Pearls Before Swine recorded a
musical rendition of "I Shall Not Care" on their first album 'One
Nation Underground'.
* In 1994, she was inducted into the St. Louis Walk of Fame.
* Teasdale's poem "There Will Be Rest" has been set to music under
multiple titles by different choral composers. In 2004, Craig Hella
Johnson and Frank Ticheli composed "There Will Be Rest" for the
Conspirare choral ensemble. In 2017, Z. Randall Stroope composed "And
Sure Stars Shining".
* In 2008, "There Will Come Soft Rains" was included in 'Fallout 3'
alongside Ray Bradbury's short story of the same name. The poem is
recited by a robot who has survived the nuclear apocalypse.
* In 2010, Teasdale's works were for the first time published in
Italy, translated by Silvio Raffo.
*In 2006, Phyllis Zimmerman composed "Four Settings of Poems by Sara
Teasdale" for choir, which was recorded on CD.
* In 2011, Joseph Phibbs chose poems by Teasdale for his song-cycle
'From Shore to Shore', and the song "Pierrot", and in 2013-14 he
returned to her texts for his six 'Moon Songs'. He has also
acknowledged her influence in his orchestral work 'Rivers to the Sea'.
* In 1928 and 1931, respectively, Teasdale's poems "May Night" and
"Dusk in June" were set to music by Marion Rogers Hickman.
* Tony Wright used the poem "There Will Come Soft Rains" as lyrics for
a song of the same name. It was released as part of a double A side
charity single for Help Musicians UK.
* In 2022, Christopher Tin set several of Teasdale's poems to music as
part of his album 'The Lost Birds'.

Works
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* 'Sonnets to Duse and Other Poems' (1907)
* 'Helen of Troy and Other Poems' (1911)
* 'In the Train' (1915)
* 'Rivers to the Sea' (1915)
* 'Love Songs' (1917)
* 'Flame and Shadow' (1920)
* 'Dark of the Moon' (1926)
* 'Stars To-night' (1930)
* 'Strange Victory' (1933)

Translations
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* 'Llegarán suaves lluvias'. Antología bilingüe. Edición y traducción
de Juan Carlos Villavicencio, con prólogo de Luz María Astudillo y
epílogo de Kurt Folch. [http://www.descontexto.cl Descontexto
Editores], Santiago de Chile, 2018.
* Тисдейл С. Реки, текущие к морю: Избранные стихотворения (in
Russian). - Moscow: 2011. - 192 pages.

External links
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*
*
*
*
* [https://norman.hrc.utexas.edu/fasearch/findingAid.cfm?eadID=01056
Sara Teasdale Collection] at the Harry Ransom Center
* [https://archive.org/details/ourpoetstoday00cookgoog Our Poets of
Today by Howard Willard Cook] (1918 book) (Internet Archive copy)
* [https://archive.org/details/modernamericanp06untegoog Modern
American poetry by Louis Untermeyer] (1921 book) (Internet Archive
copy). She wrote over 600 poems.
*
* [https://www.delphiclassics.com/shop/sara-teasdale/ Complete
Poetical Works of Sara Teasdale (Delphi Classics)]
* [https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/sara-teasdale Sara Teasdale:
Profile and Poems at Poets.org]
* Sara Teasdale Collection. Yale Collection of American Literature,
Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
* [https://imslp.org/wiki/Category:Teasdale,_Sara Musical works to
texts by Sara Teasdale at the International Music Score Library
Project]

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Original Article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sara_Teasdale