Lorine Niedecker (1903-1970)

A selective list of online literary criticism for poet Lorine Niedecker, favoring signed articles by recognized scholars, articles published in reviewed sources, and web sites that adhere to the MLA Guidelines for Web Sites

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introduction

"Lorine Niedecker." An introduction to Lorine Niedecker, includes excerpts of reputable critical discussions of some poems. Modern American Poetry (U of Illinois).

"The Belle of Blackhawk Island." An good journalistic introduction to Niedecker, by Stacy Levine, who remarks: "Niedecker, who died in 1970, is sometimes compared to Emily Dickinson, though she's much less well-known than the Belle of Amherst. Both women lived outside the mainstream and wrote distinctive, sometimes strangely hermetic verse that used nature as a springboard to explore social issues and the limits of women's roles in society." Chicago Reader 5 June 2003.

"Niedecker, Lorine." Biographical note and MSS description. Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center, Boston U.

"Lorine Niedecker." Short, encyclopedia-type introduction to Niedecker's themes and techniques, with a biography and samples of her poems. Poetry Foundation.

"Lorine Niedecker." An introduction, with links to other Objectivist Poets and other midwestern poets. Academy of American Poets.

"Lorine Niedecker." An active, well-maintained web site. Includes a short biography, sample poems, news and events, links, bibliography, educational resources, a newsletter (issues available from 2005-present), and photos. The Friends of Lorine Niedecker.

literary criticism

Beam, Jeffery. "Old Sunflower, You Bowed to No One." Oyster Boy Review 17 (Fall 2003).

Breslin, Glenna. "Between Niedecker and Zukofsky, an Excerpt." A short article on the letters exchanged between Lorine Niedecker and poet Louis Zukofsky. HOW(ever) 2, 1(November 1984).

Cox, Kenneth. "Lorine Niedecker’s Poetry." Writes Cox, "The withholding of any indication of tone, and thereby of any sign of reaction, characterizes her work. Equivocal indefinites veil intention. Veiling is not a fault." Jacket 28 (Oct. 2005).

Crase, Douglas. "On Lorine Niedecker" ["Lake Superior"]. Raritan 12, 2 (Fall 1992) [Enotes subscription service].

Crase, Douglas. "Free and Clean." The Nation 15 March 1986 [subscribers or purchase].

Dahlen, Beverly. "Notes On Reading Lorine Niedecker." How(ever) 1, 1 (May 1983).

Davie, Donald. "Postmodernism and Lorine Niedecker." PN Review 82, 2 (Dec. 1991) [article preview only, but useful].

Jenkins, G. Matthew. "Lorine Niedecker, Simone de Beauvoir, and the Sexual Ethics of Experience." Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature 23, 2 (2004) [first page of article only].

LeMardeley, Marie-Christine. "Property, Poverty, Poetry: Lorine Niedecker’s Quiet Revelations." LeMardeley focuses on Niedecker's interactions with the world around her, and asks how her poetry reveals autobiographical truths that go beyond mere confession. Poetry and Autobiography E-rea 5, 1 (2007).

Middleton, Peter. "Lorine Niedecker's 'Folk Base' and Her Challenge to the American Avant-Garde." Journal of American Studies 31, 2 (1997).

Penberthy, Jenny. "A little too little: Re-reading Lorine Niedecker." Penberthy asks whether Lorine Niedecker should be considered an Objectivist. How2 1, 1 (March 1999).

Penberthy, Jenny, ed. "Introduction" to Lorine Niedecker: Collected Works (U of Calif. P). Jacket 18 (Aug. 2002).

A review of Lorine Niedecker: Collected Works, which notes: "This Collected Works should succeed, at long last, in establishing Niedecker as one of the most important and original poets of this past century and in bringing her work into the mainstream, where it belongs." Reviewed by August Kleinzahler in the London Review of Books 5 June 2003 [beginning of article only].

"Green, Prickly Humanity." A review of Lorine Niedecker: Collected Works. Reviewed by Karen Volkman in Boston Review Dec. 2002/Jan. 2003.

Penberthy, Jenny, ed. "Kenneth Cox 1916–2005." Penberthy praises Kenneth Cox as a neglected critic of Lorine Niedecker. Jacket 28 (Oct. 2005).

Penberthy, Jenny."An Interview With Editor Jenny Penberthy" in which she discusses Lorine Niedecker. Poets & Writers 3 May 2002.

Vickery, Ann. "An Uncanny Vernacular: Comparing the Radical Modernisms of Lorine Niedecker and Lesbia Harford" Hecate May-Nov. 2009.

Willis, Elizabeth. "Who Was Lorine Niedecker?" American Poet, 2006.

"Archives: Lorine Niedecker." At Beliot College (Niedecker's alma mater).

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