Poetry of Katherine Mansfield, The

Katherine was born on the 14th October 1888 into a prominent family in Wellington, New Zealand, the middle child of five. A gifted celloist, at one point she thought she might take it up professionally but writing gradually began to move to the forefront of her interests. Her first writings were published at an early age in school magazines. At 19 Katherine left for England where she met and befriended the modernist writers D.H. Lawrence and Virginia Woolf amongst others. She then travelled to Europe before returning to New Zealand. There she began to write the short stories that she would later become so famous for. Her stories often focus on moments of disruption and frequently open rather abruptly. There was another less-heralded side to Katherine’s writings; that of poetry. Her verse certainly reflects much of the themes of her life and interests. Many poems are beautiful, thoughtful, tender and observant works on the human condition. Some though seem out of kilter for so great a talent, almost child-like in form and content. But taken as yet another facet of her work they accomplish much in helping us to understand her. By 1908 she had returned to London and to a rather more bohemian lifestyle. Life was to be lived and enjoyed. A passionate affair resulted in her becoming pregnant and in her being married off to an older man. But she left him the same evening with the marriage unconsummated. She was then to miscarry and be cut out of her mother’s will (allegedly because of her lesbianism). In 1911 she was to start a relationship with John Middleton Murry, a magazine editor, and although it was volatile he supported her work and she wrote some of her best stories. During the First World War Mansfield contracted extrapulmonary tuberculosis, which rendered any return or visit to New Zealand impossible and led to her death at the tender age of 34 on 9th January 1923 in Fontainebleau, France.