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Eda Lou Walton

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Eda Lou Walton
A young woman with wavy dark hair, in an oval frame
Eda Lou Walton, from the 1919 yearbook of the University of California, Berkeley
BornJanuary 19, 1894
Deming, New Mexico
DiedDecember 8, 1961 (aged 67)
Alameda County, California
Occupation(s)Poet, critic, college professor
PartnerHenry Roth (1930s)
FatherWilliam B. Walton

Eda Lou Walton (January 19, 1894 – December 8, 1961) was an American poet and college professor. In addition to her original poetry, she studied and "recreated" traditional songs and chants of the Navajo and Blackfoot cultures.[1]

Early life and education

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Walton was born in Deming, New Mexico and raised in Silver City, New Mexico, the daughter of William Bell Walton and Leoline Ashenfelter Walton.[2][3] Her father was a newspaper editor and member of New Mexico's territorial legislature and its first State Senate.[4] She studied with poet Witter Bynner and won the Emily Chamberlain Cook Prize while she was a student at the University of California, Berkeley. She earned a Ph.D. in English and anthropology at Berkeley,[2] with the dissertation "Navajo Traditional Poetry, Its Content and Form."[5][6]

Career

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Walton was a member of the faculty at New York University (NYU), and was close to fellow poets Léonie Adams, Louise Bogan, and Genevieve Taggard.[5] She was also a mentor (and lover) of writer Henry Roth,[7][8] and was the acknowledged real-life model for one of the main characters in his novel Call It Sleep (1934), which he dedicated to her.[9]

Walton published several books of her own poetry,[10][2] and Dawn Boy (1926), the contents of which she explained as "not literal, not even free, translations of Indian texts, but rather interpretations of Indian poetic material."[1] Her "radical connections" and "subversive acts", including her Communist Party membership, were discussed by the Subversive Activities Control Board in the 1950s, and nearly cost her job at NYU. She later taught in brief stints at Howard University and other schools.[11]

Publications

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  • Emily Chamberlain Cook Prize Poems (1919, seven poems)[12]
  • "Hill Songs" (1920, six poems)[13]
  • "Beyond Sorrow" (1921, seven poems)[14]
  • "Navaho Poetry, An Interpretation" (1922, article)[15]
  • "Navaho Verse Rhythms" (1924, article)[16]
  • "American Indian Poetry" (1925, article, with T. T. Waterman)[17]
  • "Tunes in the Dark" (1925, five poems)[18]
  • Dawn Boy: Blackfoot and Navajo Songs (1926, traditional songs "recreated" by Walton)[1]
  • The City Day: An Anthology of Recent American Poetry (1929)[19]
  • "Navajo Song Patterning" (1930, article)[20]
  • "Intolerable Towers" (1930, article)[21]
  • Jane Matthew and Other Poems (1931, poetry collection)[22]
  • "Death in the Desert" (1933, article)
  • Turquoise Boy and White Shell Girl (1933, children's book)[23][24]
  • This Generation: A Selection of British and American Literature from 1914 to the present (1939, anthology, edited with George Kumler Anderson)[25]
  • So Many Daughters (1952)[26]
  • "Younger Voices" (1954, review essay)[27]

Personal life

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Walton married fellow graduate student Otto L. Tinklepaugh in 1920.[28] Her second husband was labor lawyer David Mandel.[7] She died in 1961, in Alameda County, California, at the age of 67.[29] Her papers are in the collection of the Bancroft Library at Berkeley.[30]

References

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  1. ^ a b c Walton, Eda Lou (1926). Dawn Boy: Blackfoot and Navajo Songs. E.P. Dutton & Company.
  2. ^ a b c Hutchison, Percy (1931-11-17). "Eda Lou Walton's New Book of Verse". The Fresno Morning Republican. p. 4. Retrieved 2023-03-05 – via Newspapers.com.
  3. ^ "Eda Lou Walton Famous Authoress". The Deming Headlight. 1931-10-29. p. 1. Retrieved 2023-03-05 – via Newspapers.com.
  4. ^ "Prominent Man Dies". The Gallup Independent. 1939-04-15. p. 1. Retrieved 2023-03-05 – via Newspapers.com.
  5. ^ a b Greenhood, David. "Eda Lou Walton's Use of Her Native Scene" New Mexico Quarterly 33(3) (1963): 253- 265.
  6. ^ Walton, Eda Lou (1920). Navaho Traditional Poetry: Its Form and Content. University of California, Berkeley.
  7. ^ a b Rosen, Jonathan (2005-07-25). "Writer, Interrupted: The Resurrection of Henry Roth". The New Yorker. Retrieved 2023-03-05.
  8. ^ Wald, Alan M. (2011-04-01). Trinity of Passion: The Literary Left and the Antifascist Crusade. Univ of North Carolina Press. p. 150. ISBN 978-0-8078-8236-8.
  9. ^ Wirth-Nesher, Hana (1996-06-13). New Essays on Call It Sleep. Cambridge University Press. pp. 162, 181. ISBN 978-0-521-45656-2.
  10. ^ Crane, Milton (1953-02-01). "Elegies and Celebrations; So Many Daughters. By Eda Lou Walton (review)". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2023-03-05.
  11. ^ Filreis, Alan (2012-09-01). Counter-revolution of the Word: The Conservative Attack on Modern Poetry, 1945-1960. UNC Press Books. pp. 142–144. ISBN 978-1-4696-0663-7.
  12. ^ Walton, Eda Lou (1919). Poems. University of California Press.
  13. ^ Walton, Eda Lou, "Hill Songs", Poetry (May 1920): 86-89.
  14. ^ Walton, Eda Lou. "Beyond Sorrow" Poetry (August 1921): 260-263.
  15. ^ Walton, Eda Lou (1922). "Navaho Poetry: An Interpretation". Texas Review. 7 (3): 198–210. ISSN 2380-5382. JSTOR 43465431.
  16. ^ Walton, Eda Lou (1924). "Navaho Verse Rhythms". Poetry. 24 (1): 40–44. ISSN 0032-2032. JSTOR 20574528.
  17. ^ Walton, Eda Lou; Waterman, T. T. (January–March 1925). "American Indian Poetry". American Anthropologist. 27 (1): 25–52. doi:10.1525/aa.1925.27.1.02a00030. ISSN 0002-7294.
  18. ^ Walton, Eda Lou. "Tunes in the Dark" Poetry (December 1925): 142-146.
  19. ^ Walton, Eda Lou (1929). The City Day: An Anthology of Recent American Poetry. Ronald Press.
  20. ^ Walton, Eda Lou (1930). "Navajo Song Patterning". The Journal of American Folklore. 43 (167): 105–118. doi:10.2307/535167. ISSN 0021-8715. JSTOR 535167.
  21. ^ Walton, Eda Lou (1930). "Intolerable Towers". The English Journal. 19 (4): 267–281. doi:10.2307/803635. ISSN 0013-8274. JSTOR 803635.
  22. ^ Walton, Eda Lou (1931). Jane Matthew and Other Poems. Brewer, Warren & Putnam.
  23. ^ Walton, Eda Lou (1933). Turquoise Boy and White Shell Girl. Crowell.
  24. ^ Case, Elizabeth N. (1933-10-15). "The World of Fiction and Fancy". Hartford Courant. p. 54. Retrieved 2023-03-05 – via Newspapers.com.
  25. ^ Anderson, George Kumler; Walton, Eda Lou (1939). This Generation: A Selection of British and American Literature from 1914 to the Present. Scott, Foresman.
  26. ^ Walton, Eda Lou (1952). So Many Daughters. Bookman Associates.
  27. ^ Walton, Eda Lou (1954). "Younger Voices". Poetry. 83 (6): 343–347. ISSN 0032-2032. JSTOR 20585243.
  28. ^ "O. L. Tinklepaugh to Wed Miss Edna Walton Today". The Deming Headlight. 1920-10-01. p. 1. Retrieved 2023-03-05 – via Newspapers.com.
  29. ^ "Works of Eda Lou Walton Featured in NM Quarterly". The Albuquerque Tribune. 1963-12-26. p. 25. Retrieved 2023-03-05 – via Newspapers.com.
  30. ^ "Eda Lou Walton papers, circa 1910-1960s". Online Archive of California. Retrieved 2023-03-05.
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