Crapsey, Adelaide [key], 1878–1914, American poet, b. Brooklyn, N.Y., grad. Vassar, 1901; daughter of Algernon Sidney Crapsey. After teaching in girls' schools she became an instructor at Smith College. A slender volume, Verse, which won high praise from critics, appeared a year after her early death from tuberculosis; a new edition with 20 additional poems was issued in 1934. Her special contribution to verse form is the cinquain—a compressed five-line verse resembling the Japanese haiku in its fragile precision and expressive delicacy.
See biography by M. E. Osborn (1933).
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2024, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.
See more Encyclopedia articles on: American Literature: Biographies
