Isabel Fiske Conant

Isabella Howe Fiske Conant (April 29, 1874 – November 12, 1953) was an American poet and playwright based in Massachusetts. She wrote pageants to be performed by large casts, and published several collections of her poetry.

Early life and education Conant was born in Wellesley, Massachusetts, the daughter of Joseph Emery Fiske and Abby Sawyer Hastings Fiske. Her father was a Union Army veteran of the American Civil War and served in the Massachusetts legislature. He also wrote a history of Wellesley, which her older sister Ellen Ware Fiske expanded. She graduated from Wellesley College in 1896, and completed a master's degree there in 1905. Career Conant wrote poetry, plays, and pageants. Her poetry was published in national periodicals including Ainslee's, Lippincott's Monthly, Photo-Era, The Craftsman, Poetry, and Opportunity. In 1920, a cast of 300 (including 40 mounted horsemen) performed her Acropolis: A Masque of a City in Central Park. Her Clouds of the Sun was performed in 1922 at a New York benefit for French war orphans, at The Cloisters. She also lectured on poetry and judged poetry contests.

Fiske's poetry was widely reviewed, but not always fondly. "In A Field of Folk by Isabella Howe Fiske, there are one hundred and ten pieces of verse, none of any particular merit or demerit," began a 1903 review in The Los Angeles Times, commenting further that "there is no great quantity of thought crowded into the foreground." Publications

Poetry and hymns "Retribution" (1896, poem in college yearbook) "Ideas", "In the Orchard", "Premonitions" and "In Manuscript" (1903, poems) A Field of Folk (1903, poetry collection) "Chatterton", "Kaleidoscopic Fancies", "Reproof", "Rough Dry", and "The Valley" (1905, poems) "The End of the Day", "A Swallow's Flight", "A Bird Walk", "Mirage", and "Babel" (1906, poems) "In Season" (1908, poem) "Somewhere in France" (1918, poem) "Little History" and "Eleonora Duse" (1924, poems) Many Wings (1924, poetry collection) Frontier (1925, poetry collection) "Anesthetic", "Sane", and "Portrait" (1925, poems) "Our Lady and Her Knight" (1927, poem) "At Thomas Mosher's", "Carpenter", "On the Levee", and "A Revederla" (1928, poems) "Seventh Avenue" (1929, poem) Aisle-Seat (1937, poetry collection) "Lord of the Sunlight, Lord of the Starlight" (hymn) "Upstairs in the Pine Boughs" (hymn) Gabriel: A pageant of vigil (1912, pageant) Pageant of the Charles River (1914, pageant) Persephone (1914, pageant) Will o the World: A Shakespearean tercentenary masque (1916, pageant) Acropolis: A Masque of a City (1920, pageant) Personal life Fiske married Walter Aiken Conant in 1910. Her husband died in 1946. She wintered in Florida in her later years, and died there in 1953, in her late seventies.