Famed for her caustic wit, Dorothy Parker was born in 1893 in New Jersey and was known from an early age for her uncompromising character. Her mother died when Parker was five and her father remarried a few years later. It was not a happy time for the future doyen of 20″s society. She refused […]

Poet and mystic Kabir lived between 1440 and 1518 in India and has had a great influence on Indian society, and beyond, ever since. He was an intensely spiritual man, taking concepts from both Hinduism and Islam to present a world view that reduces man’s place in the universe to its simplest components. His poetry […]

Born into the hustle and bustle of Manhattan in 1941, Billy Collins grew up to become one of America’s most prominent modern day poets. A professor at New York’s Lehman College, Collins was crowned Poet Laureate for the United States between 2001 and 2003. He has produced a number of poetry works including The Best […]

During the early days of the 20th Century Robert William Service brought the harsh life of the Yukon to life with poems such as The Shooting of Dan McGrew. Despite the populist nature of his prose and meaty descriptions of life in the gold rush days, Service was actually a humble bank clerk who had […]

Writer and dub poet Benjamin Zephaniah was born in the heartland of Birmingham in 1958 and has grown up to become one of Britain’s most well-known and much loved poets since the war. His own writing has always been strongly influenced by Jamaican music and poetry and what he likes to define as “street politics.” […]