Anne Bradstreet: Profile of a Poet

When our country was still a motley collection of little English colonies on the Atlantic Coast, we already had a literary star: a worthy poet, and she was a woman. Raised in England before moving to the New World, Anne Bradstreet had the benefit of coming from a family that believed in providing a good education for daughters. When she began her literary career, she had all the graces of the sophisticated Renaissance style, but the challenges, difficulties, simple pleasures, and triumphs of primitive living in the Massachusetts colony turned her into a poet with a modestly powerful, authentically personal voice that speaks to all of us, no matter what era we live in.

Enjoy this presentation by librarian Todd Bastin, which will include archival images, historical & biographical information, and sample readings from Bradstreet's poetry.

Accompanying image by American painter, Elizabeth Jane Gardner: "Priscilla the Puritan" (1880)