author
Laura Riding
1901–1991
A fiercely original modernist poet and critic, she became one of the most distinctive literary voices of the 1920s and 1930s. Her work pushed hard at questions of truth, language, and what poetry could really do.
2 Audiobooks
Anarchism is not enough
by Laura Riding
A survey of modernist poetry
by Laura Riding, Robert Graves
About the author
Born in New York City in 1901, Laura Riding later became known as Laura (Riding) Jackson. She studied at Cornell University and emerged as an important figure in literary modernism, publishing poetry, criticism, fiction, and essays that drew attention for their bold, exacting style.
During the 1920s and 1930s, she was closely involved in avant-garde literary circles and developed a reputation as a challenging, influential thinker about poetry and language. Her writing was admired for its intensity and originality, and her 1938 Collected Poems marked the end of a remarkable early poetic career.
She spent her later years in Florida and continued her work as a prose writer and thinker about language. Laura Riding died in 1991, and her legacy has endured through renewed interest in her poems, criticism, and the literary communities that continue to preserve her work.