Poetry blog

We keep you updated on the world of poetry with our news roundups.

Recent posts

Sir Muhammad Iqbal Poems

 

Sir Muhammad Iqbal, also known as Allama Iqbal, was a Pakistani poet and philosopher. This multi-talented man also trained at Lincoln’s Inn, London as a barrister and was much respected in academic circles. Named by the Pakistan government as a “national poet” he is widely acknowledged as being one of the driving forces behind the “Pakistan Movement”. Many literary critics and media outlooks ...

Ronald Ross Poems

 

Ronald Ross was a multi-talented man whose, perhaps, minor achievements were in the field of literature. He was a poet, song writer and novelist but he is most famous as the British doctor who, while serving in India, discovered that the malarial parasite is carried by the mosquito. His pioneering, early-20th century work, was the forerunner to medical studies that would eventually ...

Robert Aytoun Poems

 

Robert Aytoun, whose name is sometimes spelled Ayton, was a Scottish poet whose panegyric, written in Latin to celebrate the accession to the English throne of King James VI, earned him considerable favour at court. He was knighted in 1612 and served as a private secretary to the royal households of James I and Charles I. He was born some time during the ...

Kingsley Amis Poems

 

Kingsley Amis was one of the great English writers of the 20th century. He was ranked 9th of the top fifty post-war British writers by The Times newspaper when they published the list in 2008. As well as being a poet, with an output of six separate volumes of poetry, he was also a literary critic. Additionally he wrote some twenty comic ...

Sacheverell Sitwell Poems

 

Sacheverell Sitwell was the youngest of the famous trio of artists and writers known as “The Sitwells”, the other two being Sir Osbert Sitwell who was also a poet and journalist, and literary critic and poet Dame Edith Sitwell. Sacheverell, as well as being a poet, was a prominent music and art critic and was also an expert in baroque ...

Samuel Ferguson Poems

 

Samuel Ferguson was a 19th century Irish poet, who was also a public servant and barrister who, for his work as Deputy Keeper of the Public Records in Ireland, received a knighthood in 1878. This post came after he had retired from the bar some eleven years earlier. Many critics regard him as the stand out Irish poet of his time and he was, almost ...

Sir William Alexander Poems

 

Sir William Alexander, also known as the 1st Earl of Stirling, was a Scottish poet, statesman and royal courtier. A significant public achievement was to be involved in the process that colonised the Canadian town of Port Royal in Nova Scotia and Long Island, New York during the 17th century. He was born around the year 1567 in Menstrie, Clackmannanshire. Little is recorded ...

Sir John Denham Poems

 

Sir Denham was an poet who was much in favour in royal circles. He was eventually elected Fellow of the Royal Society of London, a scientific body of men that was instigated during the reign of Charles II. Doubt surrounds Denham’s year of birth with some records suggesting 1614, while others say 1615. It is known that he came into the world in Dublin ...

Sir John Davies Poems

 

Sir John Davies was an English poet who also served as a Member of Parliament on different occasions during the first two decades of the 17th century. As a prominent lawyer he was Attorney General for Ireland while laying down a number of legal principles that passed into the statute books for the whole British Empire. He was born in early April 1659, ...

William Davenant Poems

 

William Davenant, whose name is sometimes spelled D'Avenant, was a 17th century English poet and playwright. He lived at a turbulent time in English history with his writing career spanning the Civil War, the Interregnum period between the execution of Charles I and the Restoration, and beyond. He was a leading figure in the English Renaissance theatre and was also a favoured ...