The most acclaimed English writer of the early American colonists and held the distinction of being the first poet settler to be published. Highly educated and lyrically gifted, Bradstreet produced a myriad of celebrated poems concerned with religious and domestic subjects. Often chastised for her work by men who believed women had no role in literature, her legacy gained lasting recognition in the twentieth century when poets and critics like John Berryman noted her distinctive intelligence, stylistic elegance and sentimental sincerity, which you can recognise in this week’s poem “To My Dear and Loving Husband.”