The Collected Poems of Ada Hastings Hedges

by Ada Hastings Hedges, Alan L. Contreras (Editor), Ulrich H. Hardt (Editor), Ingrid Wendt (Afterword)

Overview

Although for the most part forgotten today, Ada Hastings Hedges was among Oregon’s foremost mid-twentieth-century poets. Famous in her lifetime, she was best known for her superb poems set in Oregon’s high desert, which offer a fascinating counterpoint to C.E.S. Wood’s seminal The Poet in the Desert.

Except for a twelve-year sojourn in southeastern Oregon and two years in Los Angeles, Hedges lived in Portland from 1910 until her death in 1980. She was assistant editor at Binfords & Mort Publishers and a supervising editor in the Works Progress Administration. She taught briefly at Warner Pacific College in the 1960s.

Hedges wrote in a style notable for precision, clarity, and smoothness of line. More than half of her poems in this collection are sonnets.  A poet of the city as well as the desert, her work offers a compelling perspective on mid-century Portland life. In 1930 she published her only book, Desert Poems. That collection is reprinted here in its entirety, along with scores of additional poems published in a wide variety of venues, making this the first comprehensive collection of Hedges’s work.

A detailed introduction by the editors and annotations to the text provide information about revisions, publication dates, and notable features. Also included is an essay by Hedges asking “Can Poetry Be Taught?” In her afterword, Oregon poet Ingrid Wendt writes of her admiration for Hedges’s “fierceness of spirit, lack of sentimentality, and complex vision.”

For readers interested in women’s literature, Pacific Northwest poetry, and the literature of Eastern Oregon, this volume reintroduces a compelling regional voice.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780870719943
Publisher:	Oregon State University Press
Publication date:	04/09/2020
Edition description:	1
Pages:	144
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

ADA HASTINGS HEDGES was one of Oregon’s foremost poets of the mid-twentieth century.

ALAN L. CONTRERAS is best known for his writing about the natural world and higher education. He is the editor of Edge of Awe and the author of Afield, both published by OSU Press. He lives in Eugene, Oregon.

ULRICH H. HARDT, Portland State University, was managing editor of the Oregon Literature Series published by OSU Press with the Oregon Council of Teachers of English, and he is coeditor-in-chief of the Oregon Encyclopedia of History and Culture.

INGRID WENDT is the recipient of the Oregon Book Award, the Carolyn Kizer Award, and three Fulbright Professorships. As coeditor of From Here We Speak: An Anthology of Oregon Poetry, she researched and selected the works of poets born before 1930, including Ada Hedges. She lives in Eugene, Oregon.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments xv

Introduction 1

"Can Poetry Be Taught?" 18

Poems 1912-1929

Sanctuary 23

Daybreak in June 24

To Mount St. Helens 25

Among the Firs 26

Homeland 27

If You Had Died 28

Captivity 29

November 30

On the Hill 31

Reading from Chesterton 32

Farewell [in memory of Hazel Hall] 33

Sleep, Stay Your Feet 34

Resurgence 35

Then April! 36

A Woman 37

Not for This 38

Enlightenment 39

Autumn Evening 40

Finale [Now that I have come… ] 41

Interval 42

Alien [Whenever April walks… ] 43

Alien [This reach of sagebrush…] 44

Spectrum 45

Sleep, Stay Your Step 46

Bequest 47

Now 48

Mist 49

Summer 50

Desert Poems (1930)

I Alien

Alien 55

Desert Born 56

The Desert

It will be spring 57

If there should come 58

Autumn comes only 59

Compassionate through 60

Postponement 61

II Wasteland

Desert Hill 65

Late October 66

Desert Fruit 67

Mirage 68

After Snow 69

Desert Road 70

The Lark 71

Sketch 72

Wild Stallion 73

III Sagebrush Village

First April 77

Bequest 78

Neighbor 79

Spring Lamb 80

IV Silent Juniper

Wild Geese 83

One Autumn Night 84

Release 85

Finale [Desert] 86

Silent Juniper 87

V Desert Songs

Desert Songs

There may be hills 91

A path would call 92

Cool dreams come 93

They do not change 94

If I should fall 95

VI The Desert Wife

The Desert Wife

They crossed the final mountain 99

There was no water 100

They had their dreams 101

Meanwhile he fenced 102

She learned the seasons 103

A desert's subtlety 104

How quaint the fashions 105

Strange that a hill 106

Nature had curved 107

If roads were passable 108

It had no need of them 109

They grew more passive 110

Only a wall is left 111

Poems 1933-1955

Summer's End 115

Mission Garden 116

Afternoon (San Juan Capistrano) 117

Love 118

Afternoon (Spanish Southwest) 119

They Do Not Know 120

Ebb-Tide 121

Nocturne 122

Spring Night 123

Then April 124

Finale (Old Front Street) 125

To the Oregon 126

Sleep Song 127

Indian Summer 128

Holiday 129

Invasion 130

Another Harvest 131

Desert Mountain 132

Afterword 133

Notes 134

Bibliography 135

Index of Titles 136

Index of First Lines 138