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Ada Dwyer Russell
(1863 - 1952) U.S.A.

Ada Russell

Actress

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In 1909 Amy Lowell met actress Ada Dwyer Russell, whom she called "Peter". From about 1914 on, Russell, a widow who was 11 years older than Lowell, became Amy's traveling and living companion and secretary. They lived together for 13 years in a "Boston marriage", until Amy's death. Lowell left her fortune in trust to Ada Russell. But Lowell family did not wish to honor Amy's will and in court won the estate for themselves. They forced Ada out of the Sevenels home and kept also all the money for themselves.

Whether the relationship was platonic or sexual is not certain - Ada burned all personal correspondence as executrix for Amy after her death - but poems which Amy clearly directed towards Ada are sometimes erotic and full of suggestive imagery. The committed relationship and love of Amy Lowell and Ada Dwyer Russell was largely unrecognized until recently.

Ada is the subject of many of Lowell's poems. In The Taxi, Lowell conveys a strong sense of her separation from Ada and her pain. Collected in Sword Blades and Poppy Seed (published in September of 1914), The Taxi serves as an excellent example of Amy Lowell's "polyphonic prose," in which she experimented with different "rhythmic units."

The Taxi

When I go away from you
The world beats dead
Like a slackened drum.
I call out for you against the jutted stars
And shout into the ridges of the wind.
Streets coming fast,
One after the other,
Wedge you away from me,
And the lamps of the city prick my eyes
So that I can no longer see your face.
Why should I leave you,
To wound myself upon the sharp edges of the night?

In the beginning, as with her previous poems about women, Lowell wrote in such a way that only those who knew the inspiration for a poem would recognize its lesbian content. But as time went on, she censored her work less and less. By the time she wrote Pictures of the Floating World, her poems about Ada were much more blatantly erotic. The series "Planes of Personality: Two Speak Together" chronicles their relationship, including the intensely erotic poem A Decade that celebrates their tenth anniversary.

A Decade

When you came, you were like red wine and honey,
And the taste of you burnt my mouth with its sweetness.
Now you are like morning bread,
Smooth and pleasant.
I hardly taste you at all for I know your savour,
But I am completely nourished.

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