Lucia Trent (poet)

Lucia Trent was born in Richmond, Virginia^[3] on December 19, 1897, the daughter of Alice Lyman^[4] and William Peterfield Trent, a Columbia University English professor.^[3] Her family is descended from Dudley Digges (patriot) through his daughter, Judith Wormeley Digges.^[5][6] On January 22, 1927 she married Edward Ralph Cheyney,^[7] son of Edward Potts Cheyney, a history professor at the University of Pennsylvania,^[8][3] and Gertrude Squires Cheyney.^[9] The couple met in New York while Cheyney was involved in the Greenwich Village poetry scene.^[10] They had three children, Alice, Trent, and Ralph.^[8] Cheyney and Trent taught at Pasadena Junior College. Cheyney was fired in 1940 for his activism with the American Peace Crusade, an organization that opposed the military draft.^[11] Lucia Trent resigned in solidarity with her husband.^[12] Following Cheyney's death, she remarried in 1942 to Ernest Hamilton Smith Glass, founder of the Texas Council for the Promotion of Poetry.^[13][2]

Lucia Trent's poetry was published in over 100 anthologies.^[14] She was president of the Western Poets Congress,^[15] lifetime member of the Poetry Society of Texas and Austin Poetry Society, vice president of the American Poetry League, and a member of the Poetry Society of America.^[2] She was honorary chairman of the Texas Council for the Promotion of Poetry.^[14] She was also a member of the Composers, Authors, and Artists of America who awarded her with first prize for her poem "Young Widow."^[2] In 1965 she won a trophy honoring her for supporting the cause of poetry by the South and West literary association.^[2]

In 1928 Cheyney and Trent published America Arraigned! as a memorial to Sacco and Vanzetti who were executed on August 23, 1927.^[16] It included contributions by poets across the political spectrum who opposed their execution, including Vincent Godfrey Burns, Benjamin Musser, Louis Ginsberg, and Edna St. Vincent Millay.^[17]

Cheyney and Trent operated a poetry writing correspondence course, the Cheyney-Trent Course in Poetry Technique, publishing four anthologies of student poetry between 1930 and 1932, entitled Pilgrims to Parnassus, Spring Choral, Voices in the Dawn and Early Harvest.^{[18][19][20][21]}

In 1936 Cheyney and Trent founded the Western Poets Congress, which held its first meetings at the Wistaria Festival in Sierra Madre, California.^[22] The sixth and final Western Poets Congress was held in San Antonio, Texas in October 1941 with an estimated 600 attendees.^[23][24]

Trent served as advisory chairman of the National Poetry Day Committee.^[14] In 1937 Tessa Sweesy Webb celebrated the first Poetry Day in Ohio on the 3rd Friday of October by proclamation of the Ohio legislature.^[14] In 1947 Lucia Trent standardized the date of Poetry Day to honor Ralph Cheyney on the yearly anniversary of his passing, October 15.^[4][14] The holiday was first celebrated on October 15, 1947, as Texas Poets Day by proclamation of Governor Beauford H. Jester.^[14] By the time of Trent's death in 1977, Poetry Day was celebrated in all 50 states and 41 countries.^[2]

• "State Cops," St. Louis Star and Times, October 22, 1923.^[25]
• "The Motor Muse," The Sacramento Bee, December 15, 1923.^[26]
• "Flag of Light," The Daily Worker March 13, 1941^[27]
• "Poet of the People," honoring Ralph Cheyney, Daily World, February 1, 1942.^[28]
• "To Gabriel Peri," Daily World, March 15, 1942.^[29]
• "A True Peace" with Ralph Cheyney, St. Cloud Times, May 25, 1942.^[30]
• "A Cry for Brotherhood," St. Cloud Times, May 25, 1942.^[30]
• "The Red Cross Flag," The Stockman's Journal, April 1, 1944.^[31]
• "Act Before it Grows too Late," New Pittsburgh Courier, July 8, 1950.^[32]
• "Peace and Bread," The Register Guard, July 15, 1950. ^[33]
• "Cycles of Dream," Southern Illinoisan, February 8, 1952.^[34]
• "Mine Cave In," New Pittsburgh Courier, November 22, 1952.^[35]
• "Machinery of Peace," New Pittsburgh Courier, January 10, 1953.^[36]
• "Impatient Man," Clarion-Ledger, July 10, 1960.^[37]
• "African Tragedy," New Pittsburgh Courier, February 11, 1961.^[38]
• "Bread of Brotherhood," Star-Herald, January 13, 1963.^[39]
• "Unfinished Business," The Texas Observer, December 27, 1963.^[40]
• "Upholders of the Status Quo," New Pittsburgh Courier, January 11, 1964. ^[41]
• "Prayer for Dangerous Times," The Plainsman, May 20, 1965.^[42]
• "Mission to the Moon," The Times, January 26, 1966.^[43]

• Dawn Stars H. Harrison, New York, 1926.^[44]
• Children of Fire & Shadow Robert Packard & Company, Chicago, 1929.^[45]
• Cheyney, Ralph, and Trent, Lucia, Dreamers' House Robert Packard & Company, Chicago, 1931.^[46]
• Cheyney, Ralph, and Trent, Lucia, Sierra Dreamers' House Poetry Publishers, Philadelphia, 1935.^[47]
• Cheyney, Ralph, and Trent, Lucia, Thank You, America! Suttonhouse, Los Angeles, 1937.^[48]
• Cheyney, Ralph, and Trent, Lucia, Lady Godiva and St. Satyr Haggland, 1941.^[49]

• Cheyney, Ralph, and Trent, Lucia, America Arraigned! Dean & Co., New York, 1928.^[16]
• Cheyney, Ralph, and Trent, Lucia, Pilgrims to Parnassus Bozart Press, Atlanta, 1930.^[19]
• Cheyney, Ralph, and Trent, Lucia, Spring Choral Contemporary Vision Press, 1930.^[20]
• Cheyney, Ralph, and Trent, Lucia, Voices in the Dawn: A Verse Anthology Studies Publication, 1931.^[18]
• Cheyney, Ralph, and Trent, Lucia, Early Harvest Poetry Publishers, Philadelphia, 1932.^[21]
• Cheyney, Ralph, and Trent, Lucia, More Power to Poets: a Plea for More Poetry In Life, More Life In Poetry. H. Harrison, New York, 1934.^[50]
• Trent, Lucia, ed., Eros: An anthology of modern love poems H. Harrison, New York, 1939.^[3]
• Cheyney, Ralph, and Trent, Lucia, Music in Minature: An Anthology of Short Forms, The Carleton Company, San Antonio, 1942.^[51]

Trent and Cheyney identified as "left wing socialists,"^[52] supporting a wide variety of left-wing causes across their lifetimes. In 1930 Ralph Cheyney and Lucia Trent formed the Marcus Graham Defense Committee to fight against anarchist poet Marcus Graham's deportation to Canada.^[53] Both Cheyney and Trent were opposed to a bill introduced by Martin Dies Jr., the first chairman of the House Committee Investigating Un-American Activities, which would have deported foreign born Communists in 1932, and they signed the John Reed Club's petition against it.^[54] Lucia Trent continued to oppose the Dies Committee, aligning herself with the National Federation for Constitutional Liberties in 1943.^[15] Trent also denounced the anti-communism of the Daughters of the American Revolution in a 1931 telegram, stating that the organization had abandoned liberal principles for reactionary ones.^[6] In 1942 Lucia Trent supported military efforts in World War II by advocating to President Roosevelt the United States begin fighting in the second front in Europe.^[55] In 1946 Trent was a part of the Festus Coleman Defense Committee,^[56] and in 1951 she supported Willie McGee^[57] both African American men framed for assaulting white women.