If anyone asks, say it was forgotten
Long and long ago,
As a flower, as a fire, as a hushed footfall
In a long forgotten snow.
        (Let it be Forgotten, 5-8)

1. Barter
2. Eight O'Clock
3. Faults
4. I Shall not Care
5. Let it be Forgotten
6. The Look
7. The Old Maid
8. Union Square

Notes on Life and Works

Sara Teasdale was born in St. Louis, Missouri, on August 8, 1884, and received her education at the Mary Institute. Until her marriage in 1914 to Ernst B. Filsinger, a businessman, she lived either in St. Louis or Chicago; afterwards, she lived mainly in New York. She began publishing verse in Harriet Monroe's journal, Poetry. In her first three books of poetry, Sonnets to Duse and Other Poems (1907; about famous women, including the Italian actress Duse), Helen of Troy and Other Poems (1911), and Rivers to the Sea (1915), Teasdale revealed a remarkable ability to write simply and poignantly about common experiences. She quickly obtained popularity with Love Songs (1917), for which she obtained in the next year both the Poetry Society of America Prize and the Columbia University Poetry Society Prize (which became the Pulitzer Prize for poetry). Two poems in this collection, "Barter" and "The Look," are extraordinary. In bad health after her divorce in 1929, depressed by the death of her old friend Vachel Lindsay, she died on January 29, 1933, from an overdose of sleeping pills.

• Carpenter, Margaret Haley. Sara Teasdale: A Biography. Norfolk, Virginia: Pentelic Press, 1977. PS 3539 .E15Z6 Robarts Library
• Drake, William D. Sara Teasdale, Woman and Poet. New York : Harper & Row, 1979. PS3539 .E15 Z64 Robarts Library
• Rittenhouse, Jessie Belle. Sara Teasdale. New York: Macmillan, [1938]. PS 3539 .E15Z93 Robarts Library
• Schoen, Carol. Sara Teasdale. Boston; Twayne, 1986. PS 3539 .E15Z94 Robarts Library
• Schoen, Carol B. American National Biography Online. American Council of Learned Societies: Oxford University Press, 2000.
• Teasdale, Sara. Dark of the Moon. New York: Macmillan, 1926. PS 3539 .E15D3 Robarts Library
• --. Flame and Shadow. New York: Macmillan, 1924. PS 3539 E15F6 Robarts Library. Available online from the Gutenberg Project.
• --. Love Songs. New York: Macmillan, 1917. PS 3539 .E15 L8 1917 Robarts Library. Available online from the Gutenberg Project.
• --. Helen of Troy and Other Poems. New York: Putnam's, 1911. Available online from the Gutenberg Project.
• --. Rivers to the Sea. 1915: New York: Macmillan, 1923. PS 3539 E15R5 Robarts Library. Available online from the Gutenberg Project.
• --. Sonnets to Duse and Other Poems. 1907. Available online at the University of Michigan.
• --. Stars To-night: Verses New and Old for Boys and Girls. 1930; New York Macmillan [1967]. PS 3539 .E15S7 Robarts Library
• --. Strange Victory. New York: Macmillan, 1933. PS 3539 .E15S8 1933 Robarts Library

Biographical information

Given name: Sara Trevor
Family name: Teasdale
Birth date: 8 August 1884
Death date: 29 January 1933
Nationality: American
Family relations
          husband: Ernst B. Filsinger (from 1914 to 1929)
Education
          Mary Institute
          Hosmer Hall: 1899 to 1903
Honours
          Columbia University Poetry Society Prize: 1918
          Poetry Society of America Prize: 1918
Literary period: Modern
Residences
          Chicago, Illinois
          New York City
          St. Louis, Missouri: 1884
Cause of death: Suicide
Buried at: Bellefontaine Cemetery, St. Louis (Block 66, Lot 2693)
First RPO edition: 2004