[1] In her autobiography, A Poet's Life: Seventy Years in a Changing World, published two years after her death, Monroe recalls: "I started in early with Shakespeare, Byron, Shelley, with Dickens and Thackeray; and always the book-lined library gave me a friendly assurance of companionship with lively and interesting people, gave me friends of the spirit to ease my loneliness.

Her prose published in 1899 in the Atlantic Monthly, The "Grand Canyon of the Colorado",[4] was considered better poetry than her most notable poem,[5] I love my life.

In the Dictionary of Literary Biography, Judith Paterson quoted her as saying, "I cannot remember when to die without leaving some memorable record did not seem to me a calamity too terrible to be borne.

"[7] She became a freelance correspondent to the Chicago Tribune, and was commissioned to write a commemorative ode to be read at the opening ceremonies for the World's Fair commemorating the 400th anniversary of Columbus' first landing in the Americas.,[1] Monroe's financial hardships were alleviated after she sued the New York World for publishing the Colombian ode poem without her consent and she was awarded $5,000 in a settlement.

[1] With help from publisher Hobart Chatfield-Taylor, Monroe convinced one hundred prominent Chicago business leaders to sponsor the magazine Poetry by each committing to fifty dollars for a five-year subscription.

Monroe, herself, wrote and preferred poems rooted in 19th century tradition, but in her magazine, "that countervailing sixth sense allowed her to make literary history.

[12] Monroe was a member of the Eagle's Nest Art Colony in Ogle County, Illinois, and is mentioned in Erik Larson's The Devil in the White City.