Isabel Fiske Conant

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Isabel Fiske Conant
Conant, from a 1936 publication
Born
Isabella Howe Fiske

(1874-04-29)April 29, 1874
Wellesley, Massachusetts, U.S.
DiedNovember 12, 1953(1953-11-12) (aged 79)
Jacksonville, Florida, U.S.
Other nameIsabella Fiske Conant
OccupationsPoet, playwright

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.[1] He also wrote a history of Wellesley, which her older sister Ellen Ware Fiske expanded.[2][3] She graduated from Wellesley College in 1896, and completed a master's degree there in 1905.[4][5]

Career

Conant wrote poetry, plays, and pageants. Her poetry was published in national periodicals including Ainslee's,[6][7] Lippincott's Monthly,[8][9] Photo-Era,[10] The Craftsman,[11] Poetry,[12][13] and Opportunity.[14] In 1920, a cast of 300 (including 40 mounted horsemen) performed her Acropolis: A Masque of a City in Central Park.[15] Her Clouds of the Sun was performed in 1922 at a New York benefit for French war orphans, at The Cloisters.[16][17] She also lectured on poetry and judged poetry contests.[18][19]

Fiske's poetry was widely reviewed,[20][21][22] 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."[23]

Publications

Poetry and hymns

  • "Retribution" (1896, poem in college yearbook)[4]
  • Verses (1900, poetry collection)[24]
  • "Ideas", "In the Orchard", "Premonitions" and "In Manuscript" (1903, poems)[6][7][25][26]
  • A Field of Folk (1903, poetry collection)[27]
  • "Chatterton", "Kaleidoscopic Fancies", "Reproof", "Rough Dry", and "The Valley" (1905, poems)[8][9][28][29][30]
  • "The End of the Day", "A Swallow's Flight", "A Bird Walk", "Mirage", and "Babel" (1906, poems)[10][31][32][33][34]
  • "In Season" (1908, poem)[11]
  • "The House Remembers" (1916, poem)[35]
  • "Somewhere in France" (1918, poem)[12]
  • "Death Stays the Hand of the Sculptor" (1922, poem in tribute to Solon Borglum)[36]
  • "Little History" and "Eleonora Duse" (1924, poems)[13][37]
  • Many Wings (1924, poetry collection)[21][38]
  • Frontier (1925, poetry collection)
  • "Anesthetic", "Sane", and "Portrait" (1925, poems)[39][40]
  • "Our Lady and Her Knight" (1927, poem)[41]
  • "At Thomas Mosher's", "Carpenter", "On the Levee", and "A Revederla" (1928, poems)[42][43]
  • "Seventh Avenue" (1929, poem)[14]
  • "Dark Outlook" and "Loom of Time" (1931, poems)[44]
  • Aisle-Seat (1937, poetry collection)[22]
  • Orange Feather (1940, poetry collection)[45]
  • "Lord of the Sunlight, Lord of the Starlight" (hymn)[46]
  • "Upstairs in the Pine Boughs" (hymn)[46]

Plays and pageants

  • Clouds of the Sun (1904, short play)[47][16]
  • A Comedy of the Exile (1906, short Biblical play)[48]
  • Gabriel: A pageant of vigil (1912, pageant)[49]
  • Pageant of the Charles River (1914, pageant)[50]
  • Persephone (1914, pageant)[51]
  • Will o the World: A Shakespearean tercentenary masque (1916, pageant)[52]
  • Acropolis: A Masque of a City (1920, pageant)[53]

Personal life

Fiske married Walter Aiken Conant in 1910.[54] Her husband died in 1946. She wintered in Florida in her later years,[3][55] and died there in 1953, in her late seventies.[56]

References

  1. Rand, John Clark (1890). One of a Thousand: A Series of Biographical Sketches of One Thousand Representative Men Resident in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, A.D. 1888-'89. First national publishing Company. p. 217.
  2. Fiske, Joseph E.; Fiske, Ellen Ware (1917). History of the town of Wellesley, Massachusetts. Boston, Chicago: The Pilgrim Press.
  3. "Obituary for Ellen Ware Fiske". The Boston Globe. 1953-07-01. p. 27. Retrieved 2026-04-12 – via Newspapers.com.
  4. Fiske, I. H. "Retribution", in Wellesley College, At Wellesley: Legenda (1896 yearbook): 139-140.
  5. "Boston Wellesley College Club; Annual Meeting at the Vendome". Boston Evening Transcript. 1908-03-23. p. 16. Retrieved 2026-04-12 – via Newspapers.com.
  6. Fiske, Isabelle Howe (June 1903). "Premonitions". Ainslee's. 9 (5): 82.
  7. Fiske, Isabelle Howe (February 1903). "In Manuscript". Ainslee's. 11 (1): 73.
  8. Fiske, Isabella Howe (November 1905). "Kaleidoscopic Fancies". Lippincott's Monthly Magazine. 76 (455): 602 – via HathiTrust.
  9. Fiske, Isabella Howe (1886). "Reproof". Lippincott's Monthly Magazine. 76 (451): 104 – via HathiTrust.
  10. Fiske, Isabella Howe (April 1906). "The End of the Day". Photo Era. 16 (4): 265.
  11. Fiske, Isabella Howe (June 1908). "In Season". The Craftsman. 14 (3): 259.
  12. Fiske, Isabella Howe (1919). "Somewhere in France". Poetry: A Magazine of Verse. 8: 74–75.
  13. Conant, Isabel Fiske (1924). "Little History". Poetry. 25: 69–71.
  14. Conant, Isabel Fiske (February 1929). "Seventh Avenue". Opportunity. 7 (2): 48.
  15. "300 Act in Pageant in Central Park; North Meadow a Vast Stage for Historic Scenes from Three Centuries". The New York Times. May 23, 1920. p. 22. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2026-04-12.
  16. "To Act 'Clouds of the Sun'; Play in Aid of French Orphans at Cloisters of Saint Guilhem". The New York Times. May 3, 1922. p. 18. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2026-04-12.
  17. "'Clouds of the Sun' Acted at Cloisters; Poetic Play of Time of the Crusaders Given in Open in Aid ofAmerican Ouvroir Fund". The New York Times. May 6, 1922. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2026-04-12.
  18. "Leache Memorial Announces Judges to Pass on Poems". The Virginian-Pilot. 1934-12-02. p. 31. Retrieved 2026-04-12 – via Newspapers.com.
  19. "Miss Isabel Conant to Talk on Poetry". The Washington Herald. 1937-12-12. p. 41. Retrieved 2026-04-12 – via Newspapers.com.
  20. "With Some of the Minor Poets". The Plain Dealer. 1903-08-30. p. 38. Retrieved 2026-04-12 – via Newspapers.com.
  21. Davidson, Donald (1924-04-06). "Isabel F. Conant Holds Secret of True Simplicity". The Tennessean. p. 42. Retrieved 2026-04-12 – via Newspapers.com.
  22. Stearns, Florence Dickinson (1937-09-06). "Spiritual Awareness Mars Some Poems in 'Aisle-Seat'". The Richmond News Leader. p. 14. Retrieved 2026-04-12 – via Newspapers.com.
  23. "Various Verses". The Los Angeles Times. 1903-07-25. p. 16. Retrieved 2026-04-12 – via Newspapers.com.
  24. Conant, Isabella Fiske. (1900). Verses. Boston: F. Wood.
  25. Fiske, Isabella Howe (April 1903). "In the Orchard". The Olympian. 1 (4): 316.
  26. Fiske, Isabella Howe (May 1903). "Ideas". The Editor. 17 (5): 161.
  27. Conant, Isabella Fiske (1903). A field of folk [poems]. Boston: Richard G. Badger.
  28. Fiske, Isabella Howe (August 5, 1905). "Chatterton". The New York Times. p. 13. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2026-04-12.
  29. Fiske, Isabella Howe (1905-04-10). "Rough Dry". Minneapolis Daily Times. p. 4. Retrieved 2026-04-12 – via Newspapers.com.
  30. Fiske, Isabella Howe (August 1905). "The Valley". Lippincott's Monthly Magazine. 76 (452): 207.
  31. Fiske, Isabella Howe (January 1906). "A Swallow's Flight". Appleton's Booklovers Magazine. 7 (1): 71.
  32. Fiske, Isabella Howe (April 1906). "A Bird Walk". Appleton's Booklovers Magazine. 7 (4): 464.
  33. Fiske, Isabella Howe (1906-09-29). "Mirage". Boston Evening Transcript. p. 36. Retrieved 2026-04-12 – via Newspapers.com.
  34. Fiske, Isabella Howe (May 1906). "Babel". Appleton's Booklovers Magazine. 7 (5): 678.
  35. Fiske, Isabel Howe (1916-08-27). "The House Remembers". The Indianapolis Star. p. 16. Retrieved 2026-04-12 – via Newspapers.com.
  36. McDaniel, Michelle. "Artists and Poets, Part 2: Charles Green Shaw and Isabel Fiske Conant" Smithsonian Archives of American Art (April 29, 2013).
  37. Conant, Isabel Fiske (1924). "Eleonora Duse". Poetry. 24: 253.
  38. Knister, Raymond (1924). "Even Excellence (review)". Poetry: 340–341.
  39. Conant, Isabel Fiske (August–September 1925). "Anesthetic". The Lyric West. 4 (10): 298.
  40. Conant, Isabel Fiske (April 1925). ""Sane" and "Portrait"". Contemporary Verse. 19 (4).
  41. Prince, Clara Catherine, ed. (1927). The American Literary Association Anthology, 1927. pp. 50–51.
  42. Fiske, Isabel Howe (1928-06-29). "At Thomas Mosher's". The Lewiston Daily Sun. p. 4. Retrieved 2026-04-12 – via Newspapers.com.
  43. Conant, Isabel Fiske (1928). ""Carpenter", "On the Levee" and "A Revederla"". Braithwaite's Anthology of Magazine Verse: 71–73.
  44. Conant, Isabel Fisk (1931-03-29). ""Dark Outlook" and "Loom of Time"". The State. p. 27. Retrieved 2026-04-12 – via Newspapers.com.
  45. Lewis, Jay (1940-06-24). "Books and Authors". Ledger-Star. p. 5. Retrieved 2026-04-12 – via Newspapers.com.
  46. "Isabella Howe Fiske". Hymnary.org. Retrieved 2026-04-12.
  47. Fiske, Isabella Howe (Summer 1904). "Clouds of the Sun". Poet Lore: 52.
  48. Fiske, Isabella Howe (Spring 1906). "A Comedy of the Exile". Poet Lore. 17 (1): 51–57.
  49. Conant, Isabel Fiske (1912). Gabriel: a pageant of vigil. Portland, Me.: Mosher Press.
  50. [Conant, Isabella (Fiske); Frost, Anna Eastman. [from old catalog] (1914). Pageant of the Charles River, September 19, 1914. Wellesley, Mass.: Magnus printing co.
  51. Conant, Isabella Fiske. (1914). Persephone; a myth presented in pageant form by the pupils of the Bishops school, San Diego, in their school gardens, commencement week of the Bishops schools, June the eighth, nineteen hundred and fourteen. Written for the school. San Diego, Cal.: Frye & Smith, printers].
  52. Conant, Isabella Fiske (1916). Will o the world; a Shakespearean tercentenary masque. Wellesley, Mass.: Mangus printing co.
  53. Boston Public Library (1920). Bulletin of the Public Library of the City of Boston. The Trustees. p. 327.
  54. "Quietly Married at Wellesley Hills". Boston Evening Transcript. 1910-08-03. p. 2. Retrieved 2026-04-12 – via Newspapers.com.
  55. Laramore, Vivian Yeiser (1936-01-26). "Miami Muse". The Miami News. p. 7. Retrieved 2026-04-12 – via Newspapers.com.
  56. "Death Claims Mrs. Conant, Poetess, 80". The Florida Times-Union. 1953-11-12. p. 2. Retrieved 2026-04-12 – via Newspapers.com.