Emily Dickinson
POET (1830 -1886)
Emily Dickinson was an American poet. Little
known during her life, she has since been
regarded as one of the most important figures
in American poetry. Many of her poems deal
with themes of death and immortality, two
recurring topics in letters to her friends also
explore aesthetics, society, nature and
spirituality. In 1981, The Manuscript Books of
Emily Dickinson was published. With the
growing popularity of modernist poetry in the
1920s, Dickinson's failure to conform to 19thcentury
poetic form was no longer surprising
nor distasteful to new generations of readers.
Dickinson was suddenly referred to by various
critics as a great woman poet, and a cult
following began to form. Dickinson is taught in
American literature and poetry classes in the
United States from middle school to college.
Annie Leibovitz
PHOTOGRAPHER (1949 - present)
Annie Leibovitz is a photographer best known
for her celebrity portraits. She was the first
woman to become the chief photographer for
Rolling Stone magazine in 1973, which was a
position she held for 10 years until 1983.
Leibovitz also in 1991 became the first woman
and second living photographer to have a solo
exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in
Washington, D.C. In 1999 Leibovitz published
a collection of images titled Women,
accompanied along with an essay by Susan
Sontag. The images in the collection
displayed a spectrum of 100 powerful portraits
of women, from the unknown to infamous.
The collection helped to show others the
variety of women from all walks of life.
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