Waking Stone: Inventions on the Life of Harriet Hosmer

Carole Simmons Oles (The University of Arkansas Press)

Waking Stone is a modern poetry biography based on the life of American sculptor Harriet Hosmer (1830–1908). Oles worked on this book of poems for almost 10 years. “I encountered these women while I was doing research on my book Night Watches on Maria Mitchell, the astronomer. I’d heard the Hosmer name when I lived in Boston. (There is a Hosmer School, for example.) When I first began reading about her, I was drawn to her personality: She was a vivacious and adventurous woman for that period. She was very single-minded and dedicated in her pursuit of her art. Only when I began doing research did I understand the significance of her life and work.”

“Choosing a persona is like falling in love,” said Oles. “There are three stages: identification, immersion, and then transformation through the writing of the poems.”

Confronting certain elements in Hosmer’s character caused Oles to examine some things in herself. For example, said Oles, although Hosmer’s friends were abolitionists, she was not, as her patron lived in Missouri and owned slaves. “I had to accept her in the way you accept the foibles of your best friend. No one is perfect,” said Oles.

Hosmer had an exceptional apprenticeship in Rome and opened a studio there, where she was associated with Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry James, and the Brownings. Though some of Hosmer’s work survives today in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, much of it has disappeared, taking with it the reputation of its creator, said Oles.

Oles rediscovers Hosmer’s life in Waking Stone. Oles describes the poems as a dialogue, an exploration of what she calls their “parallel universes.”

In writing for the cover of the book, Rosanna Warren, author of Departure: Poems, said “Oles has deftly, clearly, resolutely brought to light the story of this 19th century woman artist who took possession of her own life with a determination remarkable in her own era, but rare at any time. Oles’ style echoes her subject: the poems are at once clear and suggestive, a narrative composed of glimpses, a duet between the 19th century woman and her 21st century celebrant. It is a tribute to Oles’ art that she faces so much, so quietly, in this dignified book.””

—Kathleen McPartland