She is Fierce

This is an excellent collection of work by women poets, avowedly feminist in aspiration. Ana Sampson has gathered “brave, bold and beautiful” work from poets who, “throughout history, and into our own times” have “faced educational, religious and social limitations on their freedom both to write and – especially – to publish.” Despite these restrictions on female creativity, Sampson has found enough poems to fill over two hundred pages and agonised about those she has left out. Her choices, overwhelmingly in the English language – there are a few translated poets – cover poets from Sappho to Grace Nicols, embrace new and old, with some really newly published poets, and some older ones who have not had a fair hearing. Even where more familiar names appear, she finds work that is possibly less well known. Her chosen themes are interesting, too. Love, Friendship, Growing Up and Nature are here; but also ‘Society, Fashion and Body Image’, ‘Freedom, Mindfulness and Joy’, and ‘Courage, Protest and Resistance’. Most poets get only one or two poems, although Christina Rossetti and Emily Dickinson are exceptions. Readers more expert than I may find obvious candidates who haven’t been included, but it’s a challenge; and I welcome the more than fifty pages devoted to short biographies of every poet who is here, which may lead readers to their other poems.