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d e n i s e d. k n i g h t ‘‘But O My Heart’’ The Private Poetry of Charlotte Perkins Gilman In 1894, a few months after Charlotte Perkins Stetson (Gilman) published her first volume of poetry, she received a congratulatory letter from William Dean Howells proclaiming her a ‘‘gifted prophetess.’’ ‘‘[The poems] are the wittiest and wisest things that have been written this many a long day and year,’’ Howells wrote. ‘‘You speak with a tongue like a two-edged sword. I rejoice in your gift . . . and wonder how much more you will do with it.’’1 Howells didn’t wonder for long. Second and third editions of the critically acclaimed volume quickly appeared, and over the course of her lifetime Gilman would publish nearly five hundred poems. Unapologetically didactic and designed to advance her social philosophies , Gilman’s public poetry – much of which originally appeared in In This Our World and in her popular press magazine the Forerunner – is finally receiving scholarly attention. A second volume of verse, The Later Poetry of Charlotte Perkins Gilman, which she was preparing for publication in the weeks before her death, was finally published in 1996.2 Many of the poems in that edition, like those in In This Our World, reflect the influence of reform movements such as Nationalism and Social Darwinism in shaping Gilman’s ideology. Other common topics in her published poetry address issues affecting women: the prevalence of domestic subservience, economic disparity between the sexes, and a call for a social motherhood system that would enlist the skills of professional child-care workers. Like her earlier collection, The Later Poetry includes satirical works, philosophical poems, and occasional verses. Gilman’s private poems, in contrast, while substantial in number, have been virtually ignored. Yet it is in the private verse that her most authentic poetic voice emerges. Bold, impassioned , and often remarkably poignant, the handwritten verses that remain among Gilman’s personal papers are an invaluable source of information about a side of her that she preferred to keep concealed from nearly everyone outside her immediate circle. Critic Cheryl Walker, in the introduction to American Women Poets of the Nineteenth Century, notes that ‘‘the typical nineteenth -century American woman poet was well educated and spiritually keen, showed unusual intellectual promise before she was out of her teens, either remained single or found married life frustrating, suffered intensely and relatively early from the deaths of loved ones, turned to writing to ease financial burdens or a troubled heart, and sought the support of an influential male.’’3 Gilman conformed to most, but not all, of the tenets identified by Walker. She was spiritually keen, intellectual, and oppressed by her first marriage. Unlike the ‘‘typical’’ poet, however, Gilman was largely self-educated (she was enrolled briefly at the Rhode Island School of Design); while she did not suffer from the death of loved ones early in her life, the void that was left by her parents ’ marital separation triggered a profound sense of loss. It is also arguable as to whether or not she ‘‘sought the support of an influential male’’; her professional relationship with American author and editor William Dean Howells has been well documented , but it was he who initiated the contact with Gilman through his now-legendary praise of her satirical verse ‘‘Similar Cases’’ in 1890.4 Walker also notes that among the common subjects for the nineteenth-century woman poet was ‘‘the poem of secret sorrow, in which she reveals that her life has been blighted by experiences she hides from public scrutiny’’ (xxvi). That type of verse is, in fact, prominent among Gilman’s private poetry. The rich body of private verse, numbering over one hundred extant pieces, falls into four loose, and often overlapping, categories : occasional poems, conventional verse, spiritual meditations, and intimate verse.5 The largest of these categories – the ‘‘intimate verse’’ – is comprised of a substantial body ofpoemsthatcanbefurther divided. It is on one of these subcategories – specifically those poems written to or about members of Gilman’s intimate circle: Martha Luther, Walter Stetson, Adeline Knapp, and Houghton Gilman – that this essay focuses. 268 Public and Private Faces Highly charged, provocative, and often sensual, the most private of the private verse requires both historical contextualization and perceptive study on the part of the reader. From this intimate poetry emerges a profile of the complex emotional webs in which Gilman often found herself entangled...

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