Mary Carolyn Davies
Mary Carolyn Davies was born at Sprague, Washington, and was educated in the schools at and about Portland, Oregon. At college (the University of California) she won the Emily Chamberlin Cook prize for Poetry in 1912, being the first freshman to win it. In the same year, she established another precedent by being the first woman to win the Bohemian Club prize. With the proceeds, the young poet went to New York, arriving with the remnants of her fortune—four dollars and eighty-five cents.
The long struggle with the city began. Miss Davies wrote short stories, two serials, reams of sentimental verses—anything to keep alive. She turned finally to verse, chiefly because “when the rent is due there’s no time to write a story, only verse can save one in time.”
Her work divides itself into two distinct classes: the hackwork which she does for a living and the genuine poetry which she creates for its own sake. Her first volume The Drums in Our Street (1918) was a mixture of loud bombast and quiet beauty, of blatant war-verse and unaffected lyrics. Youth Riding (1919), although as uneven as its predecessor, is simpler and surer. The poems in vers libre are clearly musical, and her eight-line lyrics are particularly wistful and delicate.
The Day Before April 62
The day before April,
Alone, alone,
I walked in the woods
And I sat on a stone.
I sat on a broad stone
And sang to the birds.
The tune was God’s making
But I made the words.
The Apple Tree Said 63
My apples are heavy upon me.
It was the Spring;
And proud was I of my petals,
Nor dreamed this thing:
That joy could grow to a burden,
Or beauty could be
Changed from snow-light to heavy
To humble me.