We keep you updated on the world of poetry with our news roundups.
Born in 1877, Charles Hanson Towne enjoyed a long career as a poet, author, editor and general celebrity. That career began early, when 11 year old Towne created and published a magazine for himself and his friends, Unique Monthly, of which twelve issues still exist and are held in a special collection at the New York Public Library. From this early start, ...
Conrad Potter Aiken was born August 5, 1889 in Savannah, Georgia. His early childhood years were marked with trauma of the worst kind. His father murdered his mother and then committed suicide over financial problems. Aiken may have witnessed the killings, or found the bodies. Either way, the incident marked him indelibly. After their deaths, he was raised by his ...
Born in 1875, Antonio Machado was to become one of the premier Spanish poets of his generation. In 1883, his family moved from Seville to Madrid, and Machado and his brother Manuel were enrolled in the Institución Libre de Enseñanza. He completed his Bachillerato in Madrid, and in 1889, he and Manuel traveled to Paris to take positions as ...
Percy French was born William Percy French on May 1, 1854. He was one of the most popular and well-known Irish singers and songwriters of his time. He grew up and attended school in County Roscommon, graduating from Trinity College in Dublin in 1881 with a degree in civil engineering. But he also discovered a love for writing while ...
Born of Scottish parents in New Zealand, Jessie Mackay became the first native born New Zealand poet to achieve national prominence. Her empathy and relationship to those who had lost their lands made her voice one that spoke for all the peoples of New Zealand, bringing her popularity even at a young age. Jessie Mackay was born in 1864 at Rakaia ...
William Shenstone, an English poet of the 18th century, is perhaps best known for a poem that he wrote in imitation of Spenser's Faerie Queen. That's only one of the odd little footnotes that mark the life of the poet, who was born in 1714 in a small village in Worcestershire in England. His early education is traced, in part ...
Atom Yarjanian is the personification of the poet as hero, who speaks the truth as he sees it and is persecuted for his vision. Born in 1878 in Akn, Western Armenia, Yarjanian grew up in the shadow of the persecution of his native people. His family was upper middle class, which allowed him to attend the finer schools, including the ...
Vyacheslav Ivanovich is one of the most well-known poets associated with the Russian Symbolism movement. While he is best known for his poetic works, Ivanovich was also a playwright, a philosopher, an essayist and a critic. His work embodies much of what made Symbolism popular, and his writings about Symbolism were collected in the 1936 book, Simbolismo. Ivanovich was born ...
Edmund Blunden was born November 1, 1896, to a pair of schoolteachers in London, England. He was the eldest of nine children. When Blunden was four years old, his parents moved from London to the small village of Yalding, in Kent, which was to serve as inspiration for over fifty of his poems during his later years. In 1909, young Edmund ...
Randall Jarrell was born in Nashville, Tennessee on May 6, 1914, but spent his early childhood in Los Angeles, only returning to Tennessee after his parents divorced. He graduated from Vanderbilt University in Tennessee, and soon after took a job as a teaching assistant at Kenyon College in Ohio. During his years at Vanderbilt and Kenyon, he studied with ...
