Campbell, Gladys, 1892-1992

Gladys Campbell, poet, teacher, and early member of the University of Chicago Poetry Club. With George Dillon, she co-edited The Forge: A Journal of Verse. She published one collection, The Momentary Beach, and her poems appeared frequently in various poetry publications. Campbell died in 1992.

Gladys Campbell (1892-1992) attended the University of Chicago to study poetry and earned a Bachelor of Arts in 1920 and a Master of Arts in 1943. Campbell was one of the early members of the University of Chicago Poetry Club, a group formed in 1917 by students who wished to address the absence of modern poetry in the University curriculum. Other members included Glenway Wescott, George Dillon, Elizabeth Madox Roberts, Arthur Yvor Winters, Llewellyn Jones, Maurice Lesemann, and Janet Lewis. Harriet Monroe, the founder and editor of Poetry Magazine, visited the group often.

Gladys Campbell and George Dillon (1906-1968) were editors of the Poetry Club's publication, The Forge: A Journal of Verse, published from 1924 to 1929. Campbell and Dillon were close friends for their entire lives and Dillon sent his poems to her for criticism. He was the editor for Poetry Magazine from 1937 to 1949, during which time he also served in WWII. Another close friend of Gladys Campbell's was the writer Glenway Wescott (1901-1987). Charles Bell (1916-), another poet and Assistant Professor of Humanities at the University of Chicago, also sent Campbell drafts of poems for criticism.

Campbell wrote poetry throughout her life and her poems appeared frequently in Poetry, The Forge, The Dial and Book Notes . She published one collection, The Momentary Beach, in 1972. From 1922 to 1929, Campbell taught English in the University of Chicago Lab Schools and from 1929 to 1957 she taught humanities and English at the University of Chicago. She retired in 1957. Campbell was active in Hyde Park's Poetry Society, which met in her apartment. Writers such as Yvor Winters, George Dillon, and Thornton Wilder were among its members. Campbell never married and lived in the Hyde Park section of Chicago until her death in 1992.