Divided into three sections (1900-1945; 1945-1980; 1980-2000), this survey documents the publications, activities and achievements of an undervalued literary community. An overview of each period explores the particular challenges and opportunities for women. The chapters that follow discuss the major poets, as individuals or in groups connected by their context and practice. These essays reflect and stimulate continuing debates about the nature of women's poetry and comprise an invaluable resource for scholars, students and interested readers.

Chronology; Introduction ; Part I. 1900-45: Overview; 1. Lyrical androgyny: Alice Meynell, Frances Cornford, Vita Sackville-West and Elizabeth Daryush; 2. A public voice: war, class and women's rights; 3. Modernism, memory and masking: Mina Loy and Edith Sitwell; 4. 'I will put myself, and everything I see, upon the page': Charlotte Mew, Sylvia Townsend Warner, Anna Wickham and the dramatic monologue; Part II. 1945-80: Overview; 5. Stevie Smith; 6. The post-war generation and the paradox of home; 7. The poetry of consciousness-raising; 8. Disruptive lyrics: Veronica Forrest-Thomson, Wendy Mulford and Denise Riley; Part III. 1980-2000: Overview; 9. 'These parts': identity and place; 10. Dialogic politics in Carol Ann Duffy and others; 11. Postmodern transformations: science and myth; 12. The renovated lyric: from Eavan Boland and Carol Rumens to Jackie Kay and the next generation.