Sarah Norcliffe Cleghorn

Sarah Norcliffe Cleghorn (1876-1959) was a miniaturist poet associated with the American Naturalist literary movement. Born in Norfolk, Virginia, Cleghorn spent much of her early childhood in Minnesota and Wisconsin before moving to Vermont at age 9 after the death of her mother. She remained there for the majority of her life until her death in Philadelphia in 1959.

Cleghorn's poetry is largely didactic in nature, serving to illustrate Christian Socialist values and progressive political and social principles. Her most widely known poem "The Golf Links" is an ironic and satirical look at child labor. Her first volume of poetry, Portraits and Protests was published in 1917 and her second, Peace and Freedom in 1945. Her autobiography, published in 1936, was prefaced with an introduction by Robert Frost.

Source

• Gioia, Dana, David Hilary Mason, Meg Schoerke, eds. Twentieth-Century American Poetry. New York: McGraw-Hill. 2004. pp 75–76.

She also wrote a poem named "Vermont". Wide and shallow, in the cowslip marshes

 Floods the freshet of the April snow.

Late drifts linger in the hemlock gorges,

 Through the brakes and mosses trickling slow
  Where the Mayflower, 
 Where the painted trillium, leaf and blow.

Foliaged deep, the cool midsummer maples

 Shade the porches of the long white street;

Trailing wide, Olympian elms lean over Tiny churches where the crossroads meet.

Threescore: The Autobiography of Sarah N. Cleghorn, 1936

External links

• Inventory of Sarah Norcliffe Cleghorn Papers, Special Collections, University of Vermont Library

Persondata
Name	Cleghorn, Sarah Norcliffe
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	1876
Place of birth
Date of death	1959
Place of death