Sara Teasdale is an American lyrical poet born in St. Louis, Missouri in 1884.
Throughout her childhood and adulthood, she suffered from many illnesses. This caused her to be homeschooled until she was well enough to be put in school, which finally came at the age of nine. Teasdale finished school in 1903 after going to three different schools and battling many more illnesses along the way. She was an accomplished writer of poetry shortly after finishing school and she has had many poems published to multiple different sources.
Her poems have also been used as lyrics for many choral pieces and she has won awards for her collection of poems entitled “Love Songs”. At Sara’s funeral, her mother spoke of how Sara always loved reading poetry and looking at anything beautiful, so she was amazing at taking those beautiful things she saw and turning them into poetry. At the age of 30, Teasdale married Ernst Filsinger, whom was a rich business man. She was courted by many men before him but she chose to marry him because of his financial stability and maturity.
He seemed like the right choice at the time to her. They moved to New York on account of Filsinger’s job in 1916. The marriage made her extremely unhappy because Filsinger was away on business a lot, leaving Teasdale alone in New York, where she had no friends and didn’t know anyone. This led to their divorce in 1929.
1918 was a year of huge success for Sara Teasdale. She won three awards for her collection of poetry entitled “Love Songs”. She won the Columbia University Poetry Society prize, the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, and the annual prize of the Poetry Society of America.The poems in this collection were full of passionate and romantic subject matter.
Their simplicity and clarity made them easily understood and utterly beautiful. The choral piece, “Stars I Shall Find” by David Dickau, is based on the poem “There Will Be Rest” by Sara Teasdale. It is unknown when Teasdale wrote the poem because she never kept a poetry journal or dated any of her works. It is thought that she wrote this poem late in her life because it is full of promises of peace and serenity, which her life was lacking towards the end.
Stars I Shall Find” premiered in Chicago in 2003 directed by its composer, David Dickau. In 1931, Teasdale’s life took a terribly turn, from which she never recovered. Vachel Lindsay, a former sweetheart and Teasdale’s best friend, overdosed on sleeping pills, effectively committing suicide. She never forgave herself for not marrying him and it was a huge burden on her when he died.
She became depressed and had a series of illnesses. Early in 1933, at the age of 48, Teasdale was diagnosed with chronic pneumonia which weakened not only her body but her spirit and mind also.She went into a downward spiral of depression which ended with an overdose of sleeping pills to kill herself in the same way Lindsay did two years before. She was buried in Bellefontaine Cemetery in her hometown of St.
Louis. Sara Teasdale was inducted into the St. Louis Walk of Fame in 2003 for her beautiful works of poetry. She had a rather short life but she lives on in the poems that she has written and the music that has been made out of her words.
