Just uploaded: a new article discussing the association between ‘Poet of the Poor’ Wilfrid Gibson, and Sylvia Pankhurst’s socialist feminist paper The Woman’s Dreadnought. The connection illustrates the interwoven social, political and cultural networks of the time, and how for Gibson, poetry was a form of activism. His work was amongst the many different ways … Continue reading New in June 2026: Dreadnoughts: Wilfrid Gibson, Sylvia Pankhurst and The Woman’s Dreadnought →
2026 Between 1914 and 1921, work by poet Wilfrid Gibson appeared in Sylvia Pankhurst’s socialist feminist paper the Woman’s Dreadnought. Their association throws light on the interwoven social, political and cultural networks of the time, and on Gibson’s commitment to ‘Art for Life’s Sake’: poetry as a form of activism.
2024. When British poet and aphorist Elizabeth Gibson Cheyne described herself in ‘Who’s Who’ as a suffragist, socialist and freethinker, she was actively constructing a public identity not just as a writer, but as an activist. But identities can’t be so neatly categorised and controlled. Paper given at the Womens’ History Network annual conference.
2023. British poet Elizabeth Gibson Cheyne contributed to the ferment of new ideas about art, religion, poetry and politics in the early twentieth century. She was a suffragist, socialist and freethinker as well as a poet, and her social networks included artists, feminists, reformers and revolutionaries.
Although poet and feminist Elizabeth Gibson (later Elizabeth Gibson Cheyne), was a prolific writer, publishing some forty books of prose and poetry, her work is very difficult to find. As I discovered doing my own research, there is hardly any publicly available information about her. As a step towards remedying this, I have produced two … Continue reading New in June 2018: A selection of poems by Elizabeth Gibson Cheyne, plus biographical information. →
This fragment from an uncompleted novel by Helen Lowe draws on her experiences as a young political activist in nineteen-sixties and seventies London, opening with an account of the anti Vietnam War demonstration in Grosvenor Square in 1968.
2014. Committed to ‘Art for Life’s Sake’, both poets wrote about suffering, injustice and social responsibility. Similarities and differences in their beliefs show in the form and content of their work. Article from Dymock Poets & Friends, No. 13.