ABSTRACT
This chapter situates the works of the American writer and editor Harriet Monroe within the historical context of early twentieth-century modernism and US-China relations. Monroe is known primarily as the founder and editor of Poetry: A Magazine of Verse, a publication founded in 1912 that became an important forum for modern Anglo-American poetry. Monroe was the editor of Poetry for twenty-four years, from the magazine’s founding until her death in 1936, and was instrumental in defining the magazine’s scope, selecting works for publication, and securing financial backing. Monroe went on two journeys to China (first in 1911, shortly before the founding of Poetry, and then again in 1934). Examining both published and archival sources, this chapter reveals that Monroe’s engagement with China’s materiality – art, antiques, landscapes, architecture – offered alternatives to Western aesthetics and suggested ways of viewing and reading literature in an age of trade, exchange, and mobility. While exploring Monroe’s contrasting views, as expressed through her first and second journeys to China, the chapter reveals that China’s historical and material contexts inform and structure the articulation of poetry in both global and transnational terms.
