What’s the best way to decorate a bare bookshelf? With special edition classic poetry collections!
Introducing Mint Editions
Mint Editions brings old classical poetry collections from women to life! It was created to give credit to the classics that have long since shaped the canon of literature. With stunning new covers, Mint Editions is bringing back the stories that so many readers fell in love with in the beginning.
Mint Editions is a fresh, new book collection that shines light on the classics. Our goal is to bring life back to classic works of literature and provoke new conversations about how these stories continue to shape our lives today. With stunning original covers, Mint Editions presents stories, poems, and essays, with an eye-catching package for the modern reader.
Sustainability is at the forefront of our mission. This means that we will only print a Mint Editions book when you order it—we don’t produce excess books to sit on a shelf unread. In short, Mint Editions celebrates good books while at the same time recognizing the footprint of publishing on our planet.
21 Classical Poetry Collections from Women
We’ve collected the current list of poetry collections written by empowered women far beyond their generation. Writing and fighting for love, women’s rights, activism, people of color, and more with such tenacity they will forever go down in history. A lot of these women or poems you may already know and love.
With Mint Editions you can start collecting them in hardback or paperback with fun, creative covers and bindings. Don’t see all the poetry collections you are looking for? This is just a small list! Enjoy other classic reads from Mint Editions here.
Ancient Ballads and Legends of Hindustan
by Toru Dutt
Ancient Ballads and Legends of Hindustan (1882) is a collection of poems by Toru Dutt. Compiled after her death and published in London, Ancient Ballads and Legends of Hindustan is an invaluable work of art from a pioneering figure in Indian history and Bengali literature.
Are Women People?
by Alice Duer Miller
Are Women People? (1915) is a collection of poems by Alice Duer Miller. Inspired by her work as an activist for women’s suffrage, Miller published many of these poems individually in the New York Tribune before compiling them into this larger work. Focusing on the opposition of politicians and citizens alike, Miller makes a compelling case for the extension of voting rights to women across the nation.
Bird of Time: Songs of Life, Death & the Spring
by Sarojini Naidu
The Bird of Time (1912) is a poetry collection by Sarojini Naidu. Naidu’s second book of English verse is steeped in the Romantic tradition while entirely conscious of the present political strife of her native India. From songs of love to portraits of urban life, Naidu’s poems reflect her commitment to feeling, both for herself and for others. Traditional and modern.
Bronze: A Book of Verse
by Georgia Douglas Johnson
Bronze (1922) is a collection of poetry by Georgia Douglas Johnson. As Johnson’s second published volume, Bronze is an invaluable work of African American literature for scholars and poetry enthusiasts alike.
Dome of Many-Coloured Glass
by Amy Lowell
A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass (1912) is a poetry collection by Amy Lowell. Published at the beginning of her career as an influential imagist devoted to classical poetic themes and forms, it is an agile and promising work from a pioneering poet of the early twentieth century.
Flame and Shadow
by Sara Teasdale
Flame and Shadow (1920) is a poetry collection by Sara Teasdale. The poet’s fifth collection, published two years after she won the 1918 Pulitzer Prize, is a masterful collection of lyric poems meditating on life, death, and the natural world. Somber and celebratory, symbolic and grounded in experience.
Heart of a Woman and Other Poems
by Georgia Douglas Johnson
The Heart of a Woman and Other Poems (1918) is a collection of poetry by Georgia Douglas Johnson. Marking Johnson’s debut as one of the leading poets of the Harlem Renaissance, The Heart of a Woman and Other Poems is an invaluable work of African American literature for scholars and poetry enthusiasts alike.
Helen of Troy and Other Poems
by Sara Teasdale
Helen of Troy and Other Poems (1911) is a poetry collection by Sara Teasdale. The poet’s second collection, published several years before she was awarded the 1918 Pulitzer Prize, is a masterful collection of lyric poems meditating on life, romance, and the natural world. Somber and celebratory, symbolic and grounded in experience, Helen of Troy and Other Poems revels in the mystery of existence itself.
Wild flight on flight against the fading dawn
The flames’ red wings soar upward duskily.
This is the funeral pyre and Troy is dead
That sparkled so the day I saw it first,
And darkened slowly after. I am she
Who loves all beauty-yet I wither it
London Plane-Tree and Other Verse
by Amy Levy
A London Plane-Tree and Other Verse (1889) is a poetry collection by Amy Levy. Published in the year of her death at the age of 27, A London Plane-Tree and Other Verse is the work of a pioneering writer and feminist whose poetry and prose explores the concept of the New Woman while illuminating the realities of Jewish life in nineteenth century London.
Love Songs
by Sara Teasdale
Love Songs (1917) is a poetry collection by Sara Teasdale. Sara Teasdale is a great addition to anyone’s Classical Poetry Collections from Women authors. If there was one to get, it’s this one.
The poet’s fourth collection, for which she was awarded the 1918 Pulitzer Prize, is a masterful collection of lyric poems meditating on life, romance, and the natural world. Somber and celebratory, symbolic and grounded in experience, Love Songs revels in the mystery of existence itself. From despair to elation, confusion to security, Sara Teasdale captures the many emotions at work in the hearts of lovers.
Magnolia Leaves
by Mary Weston Fordham
Magnolia Leaves (1897) is a collection of poems by Mary Weston Fordham. Published toward the end of her life, Fordham’s only collection appeared in print with an introduction by Booker T. Washington, who saw in its author an undeniable gift which could prove “[t]he Negro’s right to be considered worthy of recognition in the field of poetic effort.
With hands all reddened and sore,
With back and shoulders low bent,
She stands all day, and part of the night
Till her strength is well-nigh spent
Men, Women and Ghosts
by Amy Lowell
Men, Women, and Ghosts (1916) is a poetry collection by Amy Lowell. Published at the beginning of her career as an influential imagist devoted to classical poetic themes and forms, Men, Women, and Ghosts is an agile and promising work from a pioneering poet of the early twentieth century.
On a Grey Thread
by Elsa Gidlow
On a Grey Thread is the groundbreaking poetry collection of Elsa Gidlow – the first in North American history to openly express lesbian desire. Both personal and political, Gidlow’s poems express the poet’s complex feelings as a young woman whose political ideology and sexual identity ran counter to the traditional values of her time.
Orchard and Vineyard
by V Sackville-West
Orchard and Vineyard (1921) is a poetry collection by Vita Sackville-West. While she is most widely recognized as the lover of English novelist Virginia Woolf, Sackville-West was a popular and gifted poet, playwright, and novelist in her own right.
Pictures of the Floating World
by Amy Lowell
Published seven years after her debut collection A Dome of Many-Coloured Glasses, Pictures of the Floating World(1919), is another dazzling volume of poetry from the Pulitzer Prize winning poet, Amy Lowell.
Rivers to the Sea
by Sara Teasdale
Rivers to the Sea (1915) is a poetry collection by Sara Teasdale. The poet’s third collection, published several years before she was awarded the 1918 Pulitzer Prize, is a masterful collection of lyric poems meditating on life, romance, and the natural world. Somber and celebratory, symbolic and grounded in experience, Rivers to the Sea revels in the mystery of existence itself.
Sonnets from the Portuguese
by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Another great example of Classical Poetry Collections from Women is Sonnets from the Portuguese (1850). It is a collection of sonnets by English poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Written between 1845 and 1846, a series of love poems written by Browning to her husband, the prominent Victorian poet Robert Browning. Although Elizabeth was initially unsure of the poems, Robert encouraged their publication, suggesting she title them to make readers believe they were translations and not personal declarations of love between the couple.
Sword Blades and Poppy Seed
by Amy Lowell
Sword Blades and Poppy Seed (1914) is a poetry collection by Amy Lowell. Published at the beginning of her career as an influential imagist devoted to classical poetic themes and forms, Sword Blades and Poppy Seed is an agile and promising work from a pioneering poet of the early twentieth century.
Triumph of Death
by Gabriele D’Annunzio
The Triumph of Death (1894) is a novel by Gabriele D’Annunzio. The third in a cycle of novels exploring the lives of the Italian bourgeoisie, The Triumph of Death was inspired by the author’s interpretation of the work of Friedrich Nietzsche and Walter Pater. Considered a central text of Italian Decadentism, the novel has earned comparisons to the work of Oscar Wilde and Joris-Karl Huysmans.
Violets and Other Tales
by Alice Dunbar Nelson
Violets and Other Tales (1895) is a collection of stories and poems by Alice Dunbar Nelson. While working as a teacher in New Orleans, Dunbar Nelson published Violets and Other Tales through The Monthly Review, embarking on a career as a leading black writer of the early twentieth century. “If perchance this collection of idle thoughts may serve to while away an hour or two, or lift for a brief space the load of care from someone’s mind, their purpose has been served–the author is satisfied.”
White Wampum
by E Pauline Johnson
The White Wampum (1895) is the debut poetry collection of E. Pauline Johnson. Originally published in London, The White Wampum launched her career as one of Canada’s most distinguished artists. Revered as one the foremost indigenous poets of her time, Johnson was a prolific writer whose works explored her Mohawk heritage while shedding light on the racism and persecution faced by indigenous peoples across North America.
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