When Women Write the First Poem: Louise Driscoll and the “war poem scandal”

Could anyone writing poetry in 1914 be unaffected by the war? This paper turns to some of the first war poems of World War I, published in Harriet Monroe’s Poetry (Chicago) to address that question, and presents a broad survey of poets writing at the time. Ezra Pound’s aggressive stance toward Harriet Monroe’s open door editorial policy did not prevent her from promoting war poetry written by women. Poetry’s “War Number” of November 1914 opened with Louise Driscoll’s prize-winning poem, “The Metal Checks”, and raised questions about the legitimacy of war poems written by those not fighting. Some poets, such as Pound and Eliot, would not see war as an appropriate subject for poetry until after World War I had ended.