Eda Lou Walton Explained

Eda Lou Walton
Birth Date:	January 19, 1894
Birth Place:	Deming, New Mexico
Death Date:	December 8, 1961 (aged 67)
Death Place:	Alameda County, California
Occupation:	Poet, critic, college professor
Partner:	Henry Roth (1930s)
Father:	William B. Walton

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 and Blackfoot cultures.^[1]

Early life and education

Walton was born in Deming, New Mexico and raised in Silver City, New Mexico, the daughter of William Bell Walton and Leoline Ashenfelter Walton.^{[2] [3]} Her father was a newspaper editor and member of New Mexico's territorial legislature and its first State Senate.^[4] She studied with poet Witter Bynner and won the Emily Chamberlain Cook Prize while she was a student at the University of California, Berkeley. She earned a Ph.D. in English and anthropology at Berkeley, with the dissertation "Navajo Traditional Poetry, Its Content and Form."^{[5] [6]}

Career

Walton was a member of the faculty at New York University (NYU), and was close to fellow poets Léonie Adams, Louise Bogan, and Genevieve Taggard. She was also a mentor (and lover) of writer Henry Roth,^{[7] [8]} and was the acknowledged real-life model for one of the main characters in his novel Call It Sleep (1934), which he dedicated to her.^[9]

Walton published several books of her own poetry,^{[10] [2]} 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 membership, were discussed by the Subversive Activities Control Board in the 1950s, and nearly cost her job at NYU. She later taught in brief stints at Howard University and other schools.^[11]

Publications

• Emily Chamberlain Cook Prize Poems (1919, seven poems)^[12]
• "Hill Songs" (1920, six poems)^[13]
• "Beyond Sorrow" (1921, seven poems)^[14]
• "Navaho Poetry, An Interpretation" (1922, article)^[15]
• "Navaho Verse Rhythms" (1924, article)^[16]
• "American Indian Poetry" (1925, article, with T. T. Waterman)^[17]
• "Tunes in the Dark" (1925, five poems)^[18]
• Dawn Boy: Blackfoot and Navajo Songs (1926, traditional songs "recreated" by Walton)
• The City Day: An Anthology of Recent American Poetry (1929)^[19]
• "Navajo Song Patterning" (1930, article)^[20]
• "Intolerable Towers" (1930, article)^[21]
• Jane Matthew and Other Poems (1931, poetry collection)^[22]
• "Death in the Desert" (1933, article)
• Turquoise Boy and White Shell Girl (1933, children's book)^{[23] [24]}
• This Generation: A Selection of British and American Literature from 1914 to the present (1939, anthology, edited with George Kumler Anderson)^[25]
• So Many Daughters (1952)^[26]
• "Younger Voices" (1954, review essay)^[27]

Personal life

Walton married fellow graduate student Otto L. Tinklepaugh in 1920.^[28] Her second husband was labor lawyer David Mandel. She died in 1961, in Alameda County, California, at the age of 67.^[29] Her papers are in the collection of the Bancroft Library at Berkeley.^[30]

External links

• Eda Lou Walton, "So It Befell" (1921), a recording of a poem by Walton, at LibriVox

Notes and References

1. Book: Walton, Eda Lou . Dawn Boy: Blackfoot and Navajo Songs . 1926 . E.P. Dutton & Company . en.
2. News: Hutchison . Percy . 1931-11-17 . Eda Lou Walton's New Book of Verse . 4 . The Fresno Morning Republican . 2023-03-05 . Newspapers.com.
3. News: 1931-10-29 . Eda Lou Walton Famous Authoress . 1 . The Deming Headlight . 2023-03-05 . Newspapers.com.
4. News: 1939-04-15 . Prominent Man Dies . 1 . The Gallup Independent . 2023-03-05 . Newspapers.com.
5. Greenhood, David. "Eda Lou Walton's Use of Her Native Scene" New Mexico Quarterly 33(3) (1963): 253- 265.
6. Book: Walton, Eda Lou . Navaho Traditional Poetry: Its Form and Content . 1920 . University of California, Berkeley . en.
7. Rosen . Jonathan . 2005-07-25 . Writer, Interrupted: The Resurrection of Henry Roth . 2023-03-05 . The New Yorker . en-US.
8. Book: Wald, Alan M. . Trinity of Passion: The Literary Left and the Antifascist Crusade . 2011-04-01 . Univ of North Carolina Press . 978-0-8078-8236-8 . 150 . en.
9. Book: Wirth-Nesher, Hana . New Essays on Call It Sleep . 1996-06-13 . Cambridge University Press . 978-0-521-45656-2 . 162, 181 . en.
10. News: Crane . Milton . 1953-02-01 . Elegies and Celebrations; So Many Daughters. By Eda Lou Walton (review) . en-US . The New York Times . 2023-03-05 . 0362-4331.
11. Book: Filreis, Alan . Counter-revolution of the Word: The Conservative Attack on Modern Poetry, 1945-1960 . 2012-09-01 . UNC Press Books . 978-1-4696-0663-7 . 142–144 . en.
12. Book: Walton, Eda Lou . Poems . 1919 . University of California Press . en.
13. Walton, Eda Lou, "Hill Songs", Poetry (May 1920): 86-89.
14. Walton, Eda Lou. "Beyond Sorrow" Poetry (August 1921): 260-263.
15. Walton . Eda Lou . 1922 . Navaho Poetry: An Interpretation . Texas Review . 7 . 3 . 198–210 . 43465431 . 2380-5382.
16. Walton . Eda Lou . 1924 . Navaho Verse Rhythms . Poetry . 24 . 1 . 40–44 . 20574528 . 0032-2032.
17. Walton . Eda Lou . Waterman . T. T. . January–March 1925 . American Indian Poetry . American Anthropologist . en . 27 . 1 . 25–52 . 10.1525/aa.1925.27.1.02a00030 . 0002-7294. free .
18. Walton, Eda Lou. "Tunes in the Dark" Poetry (December 1925): 142-146.
19. Book: Walton, Eda Lou . The City Day: An Anthology of Recent American Poetry . 1929 . Ronald Press . en.
20. Walton . Eda Lou . 1930 . Navajo Song Patterning . The Journal of American Folklore . 43 . 167 . 105–118 . 10.2307/535167 . 535167 . 0021-8715.
21. Walton . Eda Lou . 1930 . Intolerable Towers . The English Journal . 19 . 4 . 267–281 . 10.2307/803635 . 803635 . 0013-8274.
22. Book: Walton, Eda Lou . Jane Matthew and Other Poems . 1931 . Brewer, Warren & Putnam . en.
23. Book: Walton, Eda Lou . Turquoise Boy and White Shell Girl . 1933 . Crowell . en.
24. News: Case . Elizabeth N. . 1933-10-15 . The World of Fiction and Fancy . 54 . Hartford Courant . 2023-03-05 . Newspapers.com.
25. Book: Anderson . George Kumler . This Generation: A Selection of British and American Literature from 1914 to the Present . Walton . Eda Lou . 1939 . Scott, Foresman . en.
26. Book: Walton, Eda Lou . So Many Daughters . 1952 . Bookman Associates . en.
27. Walton . Eda Lou . 1954 . Younger Voices . Poetry . 83 . 6 . 343–347 . 20585243 . 0032-2032.
28. News: 1920-10-01 . O. L. Tinklepaugh to Wed Miss Edna Walton Today . 1 . The Deming Headlight . 2023-03-05 . Newspapers.com.
29. News: 1963-12-26 . Works of Eda Lou Walton Featured in NM Quarterly . 25 . The Albuquerque Tribune . 2023-03-05 . Newspapers.com.
30. Web site: Eda Lou Walton papers, circa 1910-1960s . 2023-03-05 . Online Archive of California.