Eunice Tietjens

Eunice Tietjens (July 29, 1884 - 1944), Courtesy Intimate Circles: American women in the arts.

Eunice Tietjens (July 29, 1884 - September 6, 1944) was an American poet, novelist, journalist, children's author, lecturer, and editor.

Life

Tietjens was born Eunice Strong Hammond in Chicago on July 29, 1884.

She was educated in Europe and travelled heavily. She lived in Florida, New York, Japan, China, Tahiti and Tunisia, among other places.

Her poems began appearing in Poetry: A magazine of verse around 1913. She later became publisher Harriet Monroe’s associate editor there for more than 25 years. Tietjens' was considered a more patient and generous editor, whose style contrasted sharply with that of Monroe, who was not known to treat would-be contributors with "kid gloves".

Tietjens was a World War I correspondent for the Chicago Daily News in France, 1917-1918.

Private life

She married Paul Tietjens in 1904; the couple had a daughter, Janet T. Hart. They divorced in 1914 and she remarried in 1920 to Cloyd Head, playwright and theatrical director, by whom she had a son, Marshall Head.

She died in 1944 in her hometown of Chicago, aged 60, from cancer.

Writing

Reviewer Herbert Gormann wrote of her poetry: “[T]hat old fashioned type of mind that enjoys the same things repeated in the same form ad infinitum will have no use for Mrs. Tietjens when she vigorously kicks what she regards as the swaddling hands of rhyme aside.”'

Stories

A collection of stories, Burton Holmes Travel Stories: Japan, Korea and Formosa (1924) contains lively descriptions of East Asian countries. By contemporary standards, the stories seem provincial and quaintly Eurocentric. The stories contain descriptions of nationalities and ethnicities that might today be called racist. An excerpt:

"...For a great many years this island of Formosa was a terror that haunted all the Western sailors who sailed in those seas. The sea around it is the birthplace of terrible tropical typhoons, which spring up suddenly and sweep helpless ships onto the sharp cliffs, where they are dashed to pieces. And, before Japan tamed her tiger, if a few poor half-drowned sailors managed to land, they were usually captured by the savages who lived there and killed by them. Their heads were preserved as trophies and their bodies eaten, for these savages were cannibals."

Publications

Poetry

• Profiles of China: Sketches in free verse of people and things seen in the interior. Chicago: R.F. Seymour, 1917; New York: Knopf, 1917.
• Body and Raiment. New York: Knopf, 1919.
• Profiles from Home: Sketches in free verse of people and things seen in the United States. New York: Knopf, 1925.
• Leaves in Windy Weather. New York: Knopf, 1929.
• China. 1930.

Novel

• Jake. New York: Boni & Liveright, 1921.

Non-fiction

• The World at My Shoulder (memoir). New York: Macmillan, 1938.

Juvenile

• Japan, Korea, and Formosa. Chicago: Wheeler (Burton Holmes travel stories), 1924.
• Boy of the Desert. New York: Coward-McCann, 1928.
• The Romance of Antar (illustrated by Simon Glanckoff). New York: Coward-McCann, 1929.
• China (with Louise Strong Hammond). Chicago: Wheeler (Burton Holmes travel stories), 1930.
• The Jaw-Breaker's Alphabet (with Janet Tietjens; illustrated by Hermann Post). New York: A. & C. Boni, 1930.
• Boy of the South Seas. New York: Coward-McCann, 1931.
• The Gingerbread Boy. Racine, WI: Whitman, 1934.

Edited

• Poetry of the Orient: An anthology of the classic secular poetry of the major eastern nations. New York & London: Knopf, 1928.

Psalm, To My Beloved

The Most-Sacred Mountains by Eunice Tietjens

Except where noted bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.

Poems by Eunice Tietjiens

1. Fire

See also

• List of U.S. poets

References

Fonds

Her papers may be found at: Eunice Tietjens Papers and Additions, Newberry Library, Roger and Julie Baskes Department of Special Collections, 60 West Walton Street, Chicago, Illinois 60610-7324.

External links

Poems

• Eunice Tietjens in The New Poetry: An anthology: "The Bacchante to Her Babe," "The Steam-Shovel," "The Great Man"
• Eunice Tietjens 1884-1944 at the Poetry Foundation
• Eunice Tietjens at PoemHunter (8 poems)
• Tietjiens in Poetry: A magazine of verse, 1912-1922: "The Steam Shovel," "Christmas at St. Luke's Hospital," "The Bacchante to Her Babe," "The Story Teller," "Our Chinese Acquaintance," "A Scholar," "Chinese New Year," "The Most-Sacred Mountain," "Completion," "On the Height," "Parting after a Quarrel," "Praise for Him," "At the Banquet," "Defeat," "The Tepid Hour," "Fire"
• Translations in Poetry: A magazine of verse, 1912-1922: "Rigi," "Song" (O, my sweet dove}, "Spring," "The Red Fish"
• Poems by Eunice Tietjens at Read Book Online

Audio / video

• Eunice Tietjens poems at YouTube

Books

• Eunice Tietjens at Amazon.com

About

• Eunice Tietjens at Intimate Circles: American women in the arts
• Eunice Tietjens in the Dictionary of Midwestern Literature