Alida Klemantaski

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Alida Klemantaski
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Born(1892-12-18)December 18, 1892
Hackney, London
Died(1969-07-31)July 31, 1969
Occupation
  • Writer
  • Editor

Alida Klemantaski (18 December 1892-31 July 1969), later Alida Monro, was a writer, editor and co-runner of the Poetry Bookshop with her husband Harold Monro. She is mostly remembered as a friend and champion of the poet Charlotte Mew, contributing a memoir to the 1953 edition of Mew's Collected Poems.[1]

Life

Klemantaski was born in Hackney, London on 18 December 1892 to Sigismund Klemantaski, a Polish-Jewish trader, and his English wife, Lizzie, née Phillips. Alida met met Harold Monro in 1913, and married him on 27 March 1920 in Holborn, London. Alida ran the Poetry Bookshop during Monro's absence during the war.[2] Following Monro's death in 1932, Alida lived in London until 1939, then moved to West Sussex. She died in Chichester, West Sussex in 1969.

Charlotte Mew

Alida first met Charlotte Mew on 23 November 1915 when she invited her to listen to a reading of her poetry at the Poetry Bookshop, performed by Alida herself. Alida recalls this encounter in 'Charlotte Mew - A Memoir' (1953), describing Mew as an endearingly shy and eccentric figure.[3] In her biography of Mew, Penelope Fitzgerald notes that Alida's reading of Mew's ‘The Changeling’ and The Farmer’s Bride’ (a poem Alida had memorised on its publication in 1912) contributed to the wider popularity of Mew's work.[4]

Work

As well as supporting poets through the Bookshop, Alida edited volumes including Recent poetry 1923-1933 (1933)[5] and a posthumous volume of poems by her husband, The Silent Pool and Other Poems (1945).[6] A dog-lover, Alida also published The Popular Poodle, in collaboration with Clara Bowring, in 1953.[7]

References

  1. Alida [Klemantaski] Monro, ‘Memoir,’ in Collected Poems of Charlotte Mew, with a Memoir by Alida Monro (London: Gerald Duckworth and Co, 1953).
  2. Grant, Joy (1967). Harold Monro and the Poetry Bookshop. University of California Press. ISBN 0520005120.
  3. Alida [Klemantaski] Monro, ‘Memoir,’ in Collected Poems of Charlotte Mew, with a Memoir by Alida Monro (London: Gerald Duckworth and Co, 1953), viii.
  4. Penelope Fitzgerald, Charlotte Mew and Her Friends (London: Fourth Estate, 2014), 153.
  5. Alida Monro (ed) Recent poetry 1923-1933 (Gerald Howe & The Poetry Bookshop, 1933)
  6. Harold Monro (Chosen by Alida Monro) he Silent Pool and Other PoemsFaber and Faber, London, 1945
  7. BOWRING, Clara and MONRO, Alida, The popular poodle (London, Popular Dogs Publishing Co. 1953).

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