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 The Navajo (; British English: Navaho; nv, Diné or ') are a Native American people of the Southwestern United States. With more than 399,494 enrolled tribal members , the Navajo Nation is the largest federally recognized tribe in the United ...

and

Blackfoot The Blackfoot Confederacy, ''Niitsitapi'' or ''Siksikaitsitapi'' (ᖹᐟᒧᐧᒣᑯ, meaning "the people" or " Blackfoot-speaking real people"), is a historic collective name for linguistically related groups that make up the Blackfoot or Bla ...

cultures.

Early life and education

Walton was born in

Deming, New Mexico Deming (, ''DEM-ing'') is a city in Luna County, New Mexico, Luna County, New Mexico, United States, west of Las Cruces, New Mexico, Las Cruces and north of the Mexico–United States border, Mexican border. The population was 14,855 as of the ...

and raised in Silver City, New Mexico, the daughter of William Bell Walton and Leoline Ashenfelter Walton. Her father was a newspaper editor and member of New Mexico's territorial legislature and its first State Senate. She studied with poet

Witter Bynner Harold Witter Bynner (August 10, 1881 – June 1, 1968), also known by the pen name Emanuel Morgan, was an American poet and translator. He was known for his long residence in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and association with other literary figures ther ...

and won the Emily Chamberlain Cook Prize while she was a student at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

. She earned a Ph.D. in English and anthropology at Berkeley, with the dissertation "Navajo Traditional Poetry, Its Content and Form."Greenhood, David
"Eda Lou Walton's Use of Her Native Scene"
''New Mexico Quarterly'' 33(3) (1963): 253- 265.

Career

Walton was a member of the faculty at

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, the ...

(NYU), and was close to fellow poets

Léonie Adams Léonie Fuller Adams (December 9, 1899 – June 27, 1988) was an American poet. She was appointed the seventh Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1948. Biography Adams was born in Brooklyn, New York, and raised in a ...

, Louise Bogan, and

Genevieve Taggard Genevieve Taggard (November 28, 1894 – November 8, 1948) was an American poet. Biography Genevieve Taggard was born in Waitsburg, Washington, to James Taggard and Alta Arnold, both of whom were school teachers. Her parents were both active memb ...

. She was also a mentor (and lover) of writer Henry Roth, and was the acknowledged real-life model for one of the main characters in his novel ''

Call It Sleep ''Call It Sleep'' is a 1934 novel by Henry Roth. The book is about a young boy growing up in the Jewish immigrant ghetto of New York's Lower East Side in the early 20th century. Although it earned acclaim, the book sold poorly and was out of p ...

'' (1934), which he dedicated to her. Walton published several books of her own poetry, 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." Her "radical connections" and "subversive acts", including her

Communist Party A communist party is a political party that seeks to realize the socio-economic goals of communism. The term ''communist party'' was popularized by the title of ''The Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. A ...

membership, were discussed by the

Subversive Activities Control Board The Subversive Activities Control Board (SACB) was a United States government committee to investigate Communist infiltration of American society during the 1950s Red Scare. It was the subject of a landmark United States Supreme Court decision of th ...

in the 1950s, and nearly cost her job at NYU. She later taught in brief stints at Howard University and other schools.

Publications

* ''Emily Chamberlain Cook Prize Poems'' (1919, seven poems) * "Hill Songs" (1920, six poems) * "Beyond Sorrow" (1921, seven poems) * "Navaho Poetry, An Interpretation" (1922, article) * "Navaho Verse Rhythms" (1924, article) * "American Indian Poetry" (1925, article, with

T. T. Waterman Thomas Talbot Waterman (23 April 1885 – 6 January 1936) was an American anthropologist. Early life Waterman was born in Hamilton, Missouri, and raised in Fresno, California. Education Waterman matriculated University of California, Berkel ...

) * "Tunes in the Dark" (1925, five poems) * ''Dawn Boy: Blackfoot and Navajo Songs'' (1926, traditional songs "recreated" by Walton) * ''The City Day: An Anthology of Recent American Poetry'' (1929) * "Navajo Song Patterning" (1930, article) * "Intolerable Towers" (1930, article) * ''Jane Matthew and Other Poems'' (1931, poetry collection) * "Death in the Desert" (1933, article) * ''Turquoise Boy and White Shell Girl'' (1933, children's book) * ''This Generation: A Selection of British and American Literature from 1914 to the present'' (1939, anthology, edited with George Kumler Anderson) * ''So Many Daughters'' (1952) * "Younger Voices" (1954, review essay)

Personal life

Walton married fellow graduate student Otto L. Tinklepaugh in 1920. Her second husband was labor lawyer David Mandel. She died in 1961, in

Alameda County, California Alameda County ( ) is a county located in the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 1,682,353, making it the 7th-most populous county in the state and 21st most populous nationally. The county seat is Oakland. Al ...

, at the age of 67. Her papers are in the collection of the

Bancroft Library The Bancroft Library in the center of the campus of the University of California, Berkeley, is the university's primary special-collections library. It was acquired from its founder, Hubert Howe Bancroft, in 1905, with the proviso that it retai ...

at Berkeley.

References

External links

Eda Lou Walton, "So It Befell" (1921)
a recording of a poem by Walton, at LibriVox {{DEFAULTSORT:Walton, Eda Lou 1894 births 1961 deaths 20th-century American women writers American women poets People from Deming, New Mexico University of California, Berkeley alumni New York University faculty