Some breaking news from the world of 20th-century modernist literature: Virginia Woolf, the famous novelist and essayist, was also a poet. That's according to new documents uncovered by Sophie Oliver, a lecturer in modernism at the University of Liverpool.

Oliver found them at the Harry Ransom Center Archives Library at the University of Texas at Austin. There she conducted research on another literary figure, Gertrude Stein. But she decided to beat the Texas heat by digging through Woolf’s archives. As she leafed through a folder of letters from Woolf to her niece Angelica, she discovered two folded sheets of paper. The material looks different than the paper the letters are on. They also had pencil writing written on them. “It was obviously these two poems that were drafted quickly,” Oliver said. "I immediately thought 'Well, that's weird.'" Because Virginia Woolf was not a poet. "

After finding them, Oliver searched existing Woolf studies and asked Woolf experts, but could find no other mention of the poems. Oliver said she thinks other researchers missed these "because people weren't necessarily looking through the folders of letters to her niece, all of which were published, or at least interesting letters."

Oliver estimates that the poems were written sometime after March 1927. They reveal different shades of Woolf. A poem titled "Hiccoughs" is dedicated to her nephew Quentin Stephen Claudian. It’s a tongue-in-cheek, double-entendre riff that plays with sound and language. "Poor Quentin / goes in / coughs? Or should we call it a cup? / burps? burps?"

Another, titled "Angelica," is more substantive.

This name is both lazy and cute
But this name is not everything about her,
Her body and soul are there.
Angelica sinensis.
angel name
But it's a pity
The wine she drank,
The same goes for dad,
Classmate Dadi,
oh how dark
Exercise with dad,
And that messy yellow hair!

The "Duddy" mentioned in the poem was the nickname of one of Woolf's friends, the poet and Shakespeare scholar George Rylance. According to Oliver, Dadi showed up frequently and Woolf could do what aunts often loved to do - scold their nieces for their crushes. "These are all signs of Woolf's passion," says Oliver. “She was kind of goofy and loved playing and talking nonsense with these kids as a way to connect with them.”

Woolf had no children of her own. Oliver said it was a "sore spot" for her. But the poems reveal something poignant about her relationship with her family.

For Olive, this detective work—finding the letters, deciphering Woolf's handwriting, estimating their dates, figuring out who the father was—is a detour from her original work. But she wasn't angry about it. “This kind of research is very addictive, which is one of the joys of archival research,” she said.