THE VIRGINIA POEMS

Based on the Writings of Virginia Woolf

by Barbara Fried

Here is the life of Virginia Woolf, from her late Victorian childhood writing to her soft toys in the nursery at 22 Hyde Park Gate, through her fame as a novelist, to her last despairing days at Monk’s House as World War II raged, set in poems, as in her voice. It is as if Virginia were talking to us from a stage, in a one woman play, playing her remarkable self. The poems chronicle her colorful life—her relationships with her exacting father and beautiful mother, her sister, the painter, Vanessa Bell, her ever-supportive husband, Leonard Woolf, her love of Vita Sackville-West and friendships with Lytton Strachey and Katherine Mansfield, her passion for her beloved Cornwall seacoast, and for the great city of London, the sheer hard grind of writing, the birth of her modernist novels, the glow and pitfalls of fame, aging, the war years, her final gallant fight against depression.

Dip into any poem or read straight through to experience episodes from an exceptional life. Each poem vibrantly captures Woolf’s personal reflections, yet each has a universal resonance—the void left after a mother’s death, the loneliness of a love extinguished, the deep satisfaction of a day well lived—and each poem is enriched with a quotation from Woolf’s diaries, letters or novels that inspired it. From cover to cover this is a narrative of the fascinating life of a literary giant. A splendid collection for newcomers to Woolf to discover her rich life, and past admirers to reacquaint, remember and savor.

Early Praise

In The Virginia Poems, Barbara Fried’s cinematic poetry collection, readers are invited to fully inhabit Virginia Woolf’s life: the rooms where she lived and worked, her marriage and relationships with family members and friends, the cities and country landscapes she loved, and the historical events of her time—all grounded in Fried’s encyclopedic knowledge of Woolf’s diaries and published works. Fried’s dazzling vocabulary shines as she channels Woolf’s voice and vividly imagines her innermost thoughts and feelings, while thoughtfully curated footnotes contextualize and deepen each poem’s layers of meaning. Rich in image and detail, these poems will resonate as profoundly with long-time readers as with those just discovering Woolf’s work. A singular, stunning collection.

—Brett Warren, author, The Map of Unseen Things

Barbara Fried unveils the poetry hidden in Virginia Woolf’s prose in The Virginia Poems. Using fragments of Woolf’s writing as inspiration, she creates luminous poems that capture her vision, and emotion, even the music, what Woolf called the “secret transactions, a voice answering a voice.” For anyone who loves Woolf, this collection will enchant and linger and make you want to begin it again.

—Bill Walker, former manager, McGraw-Hill Book Clubs

Extraordinary writing often inspires reinterpretation by later writers: Dickens’s David Copperfield, becomes Kingsolver’s Demon Copperhead, and Twain’s Huckleberry Finn becomes Everett’s James. Barbara Fried, in her Virginia Poems takes her deep immersion into Virginia Woolf’s diaries and letters and creates a poetic biography of Woolf, experimenting with different forms of verse (something I think Woolf would have appreciated) as she moves from Woolf’s early memories through to her eventual suicide. Reading these poems reconnects a reader who knows Woolf well to her rich and complicated life and should provide the impetus for one who perhaps has only read one of Woolf’s novels to go back and explore the world that Virginia experienced.

—Alice van Buren Kelley, author, The Novels of Virginia Woolf: Fact and Vision and To the Lighthouse: The Marriage of Life and Art.

Riveting. Insightful. Compassionate. “Painterly Writing” describes both Virginia Woolf’s writing and Barbara Fried’s mastery of her life and legacy through the precision of poetry. The Virginia Poems delve into the depths of Woolf’s conflicts: insecurity and ambition, desire and discretion, madness and joy. Readers will savor this collection from beginning to end, and over again.

—Alice Kociemba, author, Bourne Bridge, co-editor, From the Farther Shore: Discovering Cape Cod & the Islands through Poetry

About the Author

Like many lifelong writers, Barbara Fried was a girl on a bed with a pen in her hand. She had a career in marketing and communications as a Director of Marketing for Prentice-Hall Publishers, Director of Development for The International Fund for Animal Welfare and Board Member and grant writer for the Cape Cod Literacy Council. She is a member of the ESP Poets Workshop on Cape Cod, and has been published in Reflections, ONE ART and forthcoming in Black History in Poetry, Vol. 1. Her long-term study of Virginia Woolf began at Boston University where she earned a BA in English Language and Literature. She is a member of the Virginia Woolf Society of Great Britain.

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