Rose Emily Ridge was born in Dublin, Ireland in 1973. After spending her childhood in Australia and New Zealand, she fled an abusive husband for California in 1907. Arriving in America, she promptly changed her name, her age, her nationality and her marital status and launched her new life as Lola Ridge, radical poet, anarchist organizer, and editor of the influential avant-garde magazine Broom. Her unconventional life, radical activist work and influential writing should have placed her alongside literary giants (and friends) William Carlos Williams, Edna St. Vincent Millay and Jean Toomer, but the shifting political climate, and her first would-be biographer’s failure to produce any actual writing, meant that for decades she has been almost completely forgotten.

Our guest, Guggenheim-award-winning writer Terese Svoboda, is working to remedy this tragic erasure. Along with Anything That Burns You: A Portrait of Lola Ridge, A Radical Poet, Terese Svoboda has published 6 books of fiction, 7 books of poetry, a memoir, and a book of translation from the Sudanese.

Music featured in this episode by Half Pelican, Trialogo, The New Hot 5, and Killarney.

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