Lola Ridge (1873–1941) ranked during her lifetime among major American poets, winning, for example, the prestigious Shelley Memorial Award twice, in 1934 and 1935. In her instructive and insightful biography, Terese Svoboda explains that the prize is “still given to an American poet every year, ‘selected with reference to his or her genius and need, by a jury of three poets—one appointed by the president of Radcliffe (now Harvard), one by the president of the University of California at Berkeley, and one by the Poetry Society of America’s board of governors.’ ” Ridge received rave reviews throughout her career, beginning with The Ghetto and Other Poems (1918), which established her reputation as a poet exploring the gritty environs of New York’s Lower East Side, where she also perfected her persona as a half-starved, tubercular figure virtually refining herself out of existence.
The self-dramatizing poet was both deadly serious and extraordinarily selfish.
Svoboda understands the value this poet derived from sickness:
She didn’t have to answer letters or come to the door or entertain when she was ill, allowing her more time to concentrate on her poetry. The archetypal T.B. sufferer was believed to suffer some passionate feeling that caused the illness and which she must express—often love, but also possibly political or moral beliefs. Having an illness similar to T.B.enabled Ridge to speak out. It was also a useful tool in asserting her gentility and rectifying her inferior social status—all that bed
