by George J. Dance
Mary Carolyn Davies (January 1, 1888 - 1940?) was an American poet and prose writer.[1]

Mary Carolyn Davies (1888-1940?). Courtesy Second Hand Songs.
Life[]
Youth and education[]
Davies was born in Sprague, Washington, January 1, 1888.[1]
She moved to Portland, Oregon in 1900.[1]
In 1911 she entered the University of California, Berkeley, where she won the Bohemian Club prize and the Emily Cook Prize for Poetry as a freshman; but dropped out after a year.[1]
Career[]
She moved to New York City, where she supported herself by hack literary work, while also writing poetry in her spare time.[1]
Her earliest book was published in 1918. Soon after, she moved back to Oregon and married Leland Davis (a marriage which ended in divorce).[1]
During the 1920s she published in magazines that included Collier’s, Cosmopolitan, Good Housekeeping, McClure’s, and Poetry, and in prominent anthologies like the Bookman Anthology of Verse and Modern American Poetry.[1]
She was elected president of the Women's Press Club of Oregon in 1920, and president of the Northwest Poetry Society in 1924.[1]
In 1930 she moved back to New York, and published little in the following decade. In 1940 the Oregonian reported that she was destitute; the paper's poetry editor visited her in New York, and found her living in a "deplorable state." There is no record of her death.[1]
Recognition[]
In 1912 Davies became the 1st woman to win the Bohemian Club Prize for poetry.[2]
Publications[]

Poetry[]
- Songs. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1913.[3]
- The Drums in Our Street: A book of war poems. New York: MacMillan, 1918.
- Youth Riding: Lyrics. New York: Macmillan, 1919.
- The Skyline Trail: A book of western verse. Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill, 1924.
- Penny Show. New York: H. Harrison, 1927.
- Street-Lamp Apples, and other poems. New York: Works Progress Administration, 1936.
Play[]
- The Slave with Two Faces: An allegory in one act. New York: Egmont Arens, 1918; Alexandria, VA: Alexander Street Press, 2004.
Novel[]
- The Husband Test. Philadelphia, PA: Penn Publishing, 1921.
Juvenile[]
- A Little Freckled Person: A book of child verse. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1919.
- The Merry Children's Book of Play. New York & London: Funk & Wagnalls, [192-?]
Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.[4]
Cloistered Mary Carolyn Davies Audiobook Short Poetry
Poems by Davies[]
See also[]
References[]
Notes[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 Don Colburn, Mary Carolyn Davies, Oregon Encylopedia, Portland State University, Web, July 13, 2012.
- ↑ Mary Carolyn Davies, Greenwich Village Bookshop Door, Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas at Austin. Web, Oct. 3, 2018.
- ↑ Songs (1913), Internet Archive. Web, June 4, 2013.
- ↑ Search results = au:Mary Carolyn Davies, WorldCat, OCLC Online Computer Library Center Inc. Web, June 28, 2014.
External links[]
- Poems
- Mary Carolyn Davies profile & poem ("Songs of a Girl") at the Academy of American Poets
- "If I Had Known"
- Mary Carolyn Davies in The New Poetry: An anthology: "Cloistered," "Songs of a Girl"
- Mary Carolyn Davies at the Poetry Foundation
- Mary Carolyn Davies in Poetry: A magazine of verse, 1912-1922: "Cloistered," "The Death Watch," "Intuition," "Sun Prayer," "Wind Prayer," "The Grapes," "Dusk," "A Girl's Songs," "In the Middle West," "Sea Gulls," "The Apple Tree Said," "I Pray You," "Portrait of a House," "The Last of the Cowboys"
- Books
- Works by Mary Carolyn Davies at Project Gutenberg
- Mary Carolyn Davies at Amazon.com
- Audio / video
- Mary Carolyn Davies poems at YouTube
- About
- Mary Carolyn Davies at the Oregon Encylopedia
- Mary Carolyn Davies at the Greenwich Village Bookshop Door
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