Grace Conkling

{{short description|American poet}}

{{Infobox person

| name = Grace Walcott Hazard Conkling

| image = Grace Conkling.jpg

| alt =

| caption = Grace Walcott Hazard Conkling

| birth_name = Grace Walcott Hazard

| birth_date = {{birth date|1878|02|07}}

| birth_place = New York City

| death_date = {{Death date and age|1958|11|15|1878|02|07}}

| death_place =

| nationality = American

| other_names =

| occupation = Poet, English Professor

| years_active =

| known_for =

| notable_works =

| spouse = Roscoe Platt Conkling

| children = Hilda Conkling

Elsa Kruuse

}}

Grace Walcott Hazard Conkling (February 7, 1878 – November 15, 1958) was an American author, a poet and an English professor.

Background

Grace Walcott Hazard was born in New York City on February 7, 1878. She earned a bachelor of letters degree at Smith College and then taught at the Graham School in New York. Hazard moved to France to study music, but she became ill and returned to the United States.

In 1905, Hazard married Rose Platt Conkling, and they lived on a ranch in Mexico.

{{cite web

| title = Grace Hazard Conkling: 1878–1958

| publisher = Poetry Foundation

| url = http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poets/detail/grace-hazard-conkling

| date =

| accessdate = 22 July 2016}} Conkling had two daughters, Hilda and Elsa. She died at the age of 80 on November 15, 1958.(1958) "Rites for Mrs.,Grace Conkling." New York Times

Career

In 1914, Hazard taught English at Smith College where she remained till she retired in 1947. She was a trustee of the Cummington School of the Arts, run by her colleague Katherine Frazier in western Massachusetts.{{Cite book |last=Spiegelman |first=Willard |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=apVuEAAAQBAJ&dq=%22Katherine+Frazier%22+Cummington&pg=PT63 |title=Nothing Stays Put: The Life and Poetry of Amy Clampitt |date=2023-02-28 |publisher=Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group |isbn=978-0-525-65827-6 |language=en}}

Conkling attracted wide attention as the teacher of her little daughter, Hilda Conkling, whose Poems by a Little Girl (1920) displayed great ability at an early age. Grace copied down her daughter's poems as they were spoken, which is the only record that exists of Hilda's work.Sapir, Edward, Conkling, Grace Hazard, and Driscoll, Louise (1919). [https://www.jstor.org/stable/20572283 "Concerning Hilda Conkling."] The Poetry Foundation

Writings

Her collected volumes of verse include:

  • Afternoons of April (1915)
  • Wilderness Songs (1920)
  • Flying Fish: A Book of Songs and Sonnets (1926)
  • Witch and Other Poems (1929)

References

{{Reflist}}