Ridge, Lola

RIDGE, LOLA (1873-1941). Poet, early modernist, feminist, and independent radical, Rose Emily Ridge was born in Dublin, Ireland, grew up in New Zealand, studied art in Australia, and immigrated to the United States in 1907. Settling initially in San Francisco, she adopted the name “Lola Ridge” and soon published her first poem. Inclined toward a bohemian life-style, Ridge soon found a new home in Greenwich Village, where she joined a circle of radicals that included Margaret Sanger and Emma Goldman, and found inspiration for her poetry in the lives of working-class and immigrant New Yorkers.

Her first long poem, “The Ghetto,” appeared in the New Republic in 1918. By delving into the inequities of capitalism, the poem centers on Jewish life in the Lower East Side: “Sadie dresses in black./She has black-wet hair full of cold lights/And a fine-drawn face, too white.? All day the power machines/Drone in her ears…/All day the fine dust flies/Till throats are parched and itch/And the heat – like a kept corpse -/Fouls to the last corner.” With the publication of “The Ghetto,” Ridge established her credentials as a proletarian poet. The poet and critic Robert Pinsky described her intention: “to make poetry out of the actual city.”

Ridge continued to write political poems. The volume Red Flags (1927) showcased her most socially-conscious poems, several celebrating the Russian Revolution. “Moscow Bells, 1917” and “Russian Women” are nothing less than tributes to revolutionary ardor. The subject of her late-1920s activism filled Firehead (1927), which reflects on martyrdom inspired by the execution of Sacco and Vanzetti. Dance of Fire (1935) includes the signature poem, often considered her most successful, as a final tribute to the Italian-born anarchists. Soon after publication, Ridge won a Guggenheim Fellowship. She died of pulmonary fibrosis just six years later.

Berke, Nancy. Women Poets on the Left: Lola Ridge, Genevieve Taggard, Margaret Walker. Gainsville, FL: University of Florida Press, 2001.

Tobin, Daniel, ed. Light in Hand: Selected Early Poems. Quale Press, 2007.

Lola Ridge Papers. Finding Aid. Smith College Libraries. https://findingaids.smith.edu/repositories/2/resources/651