Editing Lola Ridge (section)

==Literary career==
Ridge sent a collection of her poems entitled ''Verses'' (1905) inspired by her childhood in Hokitika to [[Alfred Stephens|A.G. Stephens]] at the ''Sydney Bulletin,'' but he declined to publish the collection.<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal|last=Tobin|first=Daniel|date=Winter 2018|title=An Unfinished Tower: On the Early Poems of Lola Ridge|url=https://doi.org/10.1353/thr.2018.0013|journal=[[The Hopkins Review]]|volume=11|pages=69–85|doi=10.1353/thr.2018.0013|s2cid=165188959 |via=Project MUSE}}</ref><ref name="ridge" /> In 1918, Ridge gained considerable notice with her long poem, ''The Ghetto'', first published in ''[[The New Republic]]''. It was included in her first book, ''The Ghetto and Other Poems,'' published that year. The title poem portrays the [[Jew]]ish immigrant community of [[Hester Street (Manhattan)|Hester Street]] in the [[Lower East Side]] of New York, where Ridge lived for a time.<ref name="ridge" /> It explores the effects of capitalism, gender, and generational conflict in ways that bear comparison to the works of [[Charles Reznikoff]]. In addition, Ridge gave an empathetic portrayal of America's urban masses and immigrant communities.<ref name=":0" /> The book was a critical success.

This recognition led to opportunities for Ridge; she became involved with and edited new ''avant-garde'' magazines such as ''[[Others: A Magazine of the New Verse|Others]]'' in 1919, and ''Broom,'' founded in 1921 by [[Harold Loeb]], for which she was the American editor from 1922 to 1923, while he published in Rome. While working with Loeb, she had an apartment next to the basement office of ''Broom'' in the townhouse of his estranged wife [[Marjorie Content]].<ref name="ridge"/> As part of her work at ''Others'', Ridge gave a lecture tour in 1919 on "Women and the Creative Will," arguing that traditional gender roles were a form of patriarchal control used to suppress female creativity.<ref name="ridge" /><ref name=":0" />

Ridge published 61 poems from 1908 to 1937 in such leading magazines as ''Poetry,'' ''[[The New Republic|New Republic]],'' ''[[The Saturday Review of Literature]]'' and ''[[Mother Earth (magazine)|Mother Earth]]''.<ref name="allego"/> She was a contributing editor to ''[[The New Masses]].''<ref name="ridge"/>

She wrote and published four more books of poetry through 1935, and single poems into 1937. Her collections include ''The Ghetto, and Other Poems'' (1918), ''Sun-up, and Other Poems'' (1920), ''Red Flag'' (1927), ''Firehead'' (1930), and ''Dance of Fire'' (1935).<ref name="ridge" /> Her work was also collected in anthologies. Her third book, ''Red Flag'' (1927) collected much of her political poetry.<ref name="allego"/>

In 1929, Ridge was accepted for a residency at the writers colony of [[Yaddo]]. That year she published ''Firehead'', a long poem that was a radical retelling of Jesus' crucifixion. It and her last book, published in 1935 were more philosophical compared to her earlier work.<ref name="allego"/>

She was awarded a [[Guggenheim Fellow]]ship in 1935. She received the [[Shelley Memorial Award]] from the Poetry Society of America in 1934 and 1935. Publishing until 1937, she died in Brooklyn in 1941 of pulmonary [[tuberculosis]].<ref name="ridge"/>