We keep you updated on the world of poetry with our news roundups.
Born in Pennsylvania in 1896, Esther Popel was an African American poet, writer and activist who was popular for works such as Thoughtless Thinks by a Thinkless Thoughter. Her father was a mailman and encouraged all his children to gain a better education and Popel herself graduated at the age of 18 from the Harrisburg’s Central High School. Popel made history when ...
Born in Wolverhampton in 1875, Evelyn Underhill was a writer and poet who was greatly influenced by the spiritual world and was perhaps best known for her works on the mysticism, particularly that which surrounds Christianity. An only child with a father who was a writer, Underhill spent most of her early days being educated at home before going to a ...
Born in 1917 in Nablus, Fadwa Touqan was one of the most influential poets of her day and wrote extensively about the Israeli occupation of Palestine and the hardship it brought to the people. She was born into one of the most influential and well-known families of the country – her younger brother Ibrahim would become ‘the poet of Palestine’ though ...
Born in Ottawa in Canada in 1913, poet and novel writer Elizabeth Smart grew up in a well-known and affluent family, her father a lawyer who regularly mixed with prominent figures of the day. Smart was given the best of starts in life with a good private education and it was no surprise when she became interested in writing, and poetry ...
Florence Anthony was a 20th century, mixed-race American poet who worked hard to create the image of a hard-hitting, uncompromising writer who was never afraid to delve into the murky worlds of sexual exploitation and domestic violence. How much of this is semi-autobiographical is open to conjecture and it is easy to speculate that something (or someone) may have driven her to ...
Erasmus Darwin was a leading figure in 18th century England in the fields of medicine, science, philosophy and poetry. His talents were almost limitless and he was, literally, a larger than life figure of a man who, when visiting patients, used to send his driver ahead of him. The driver, also a large man, would test the strength of the floors in ...
The English poet Elizabeth Daryush attracted a fair amount of criticism for the “proper” language that she used, and the style that she adopted, when writing her poems. She should not be blamed for it though as she grew up during Victorian and Edwardian times where it was perfectly normal for a young woman of her background to write in the way that ...
To use her full name, the three times-married Elizabeth Anne Chase Akers Allen (she retained her maiden name and the last two of her married names) was an American poet and journalist who travelled widely in Europe during the 19th century. She worked as a journalist for several publications while writing and publishing a number of collections of poems. She is best ...
Sir Edwin Arnold was a 19th century English poet, teacher and journalist who spent a great deal of his time on the Indian sub-continent and in the Far East. He developed a deep interest in Eastern religions and his most famous, though controversial, piece of work was The Light of Asia. It was basically about the life and influence of the Buddha ...
Born in 1683 in Upham near Winchester, Edward Young is perhaps one of the lesser recognized English poets of the time. He is now mostly known for a single work, Night Thoughts, though he was a prolific writer who produced a number of popular poems. He was raised in a moderately wealthy family with his father rising to the clerical heights ...
