Recent posts

George J Whyte Melville Poems

 

George J Whyte Melville was a 19th century Scottish poet, novelist and Army officer.  Apart from writing he was a great lover of horse riding and was enthusiastically involved in the field sports of hunting, shooting and fishing. He was born on the 19th June 1821 at Mount Melville, which lies close to St Andrews in the north eastern region of Scotland.  He was privileged ...

George Frederick Root Poems

 

George Frederick Root was a 19th century American poet, musician and educator whose stirring verse was much enjoyed around the American Civil War, when it was turned into stirring battle songs.  Good examples of these were The Battle Cry of Freedom and Tramp! Tramp! Tramp! He was born on the 30th August 1820 into a farming community in Sheffield, Massachusetts.  His parents named him after the composer Handel ...

Gordon Bottomley Poems

 

Gordon Bottomley was an English poet and playwright who was well known for his verse dramas.  He had a number of collections of poetry published along with over a dozen plays.  He was greatly influenced by the Romantic poets of his time, along with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood of artists and writers of the mid-19th century.  He also greatly admired the work of writer and ...

Hardwicke Drummond Rawnsley Poems

 

Hardwicke Drummond Rawnsley was a country vicar of the C of E who was also a poet and hymn writer.  He published in excess of forty books, some of which were poetry while others included a biography of his good friend John Ruskin and a number of studies of the natural beauty of his beloved Lake District.  He was a prolific sonnet ...

George Gordon McCrae Poems

 

George Gordon McCrae was a Scottish-born, Australian poet and man of letters who also served the government of the state of Victoria for many years, rising to the position of Deputy Registrar-General. He was born on the 29th May 1833 in the Edinburgh district of Leith which lies just to the north of the city on the banks of the Firth of Forth.  His ...

George Marion McClellan Poems

 

George Marion McClellan was an African American poet and writer of fictional short stories.  Throughout his life he worked tirelessly as a minister of the Congregational church to educate and inform people on the subject of racial justice and dignity for African Americans.  His work as a writer most certainly helped him in this difficult task. He was born on the 29th September ...

Grace Ellery Channing Poems

 

Grace Ellery Channing was an American poet and playwright whose work was much inspired by time spent living in California and also by different spells in Italy, one of which she spent working as a war correspondent (1916-18).  She had a lot of work published in a magazine called The Land of Sunshine and she eventually became associate editor of this west coast ...

Guy Wetmore Carryl Poems

 

Guy Wetmore Carryl was a US poet, playwright, magazine editor and humourist.  He was born at a time known as the “gilded age” of literature and he did his best to challenge the status quo of this era wherever he could. He was born on the 4th March 1873 in NYC, the son of a writer of children’s books by the name of Charles Carryl.  There ...

Arts in the Parks

 

Earth Day may be coming up, but here at My Poetic Side we don’t need a holiday to celebrate the gorgeous natural landscapes that this country offers. The sun is out and vacation is on our minds, but there’s so much inspiration to be found – inspiration that we’re eager to channel into our own poetry. Luckily the National Park Service has created an artist in residence program called ...

Gérard de Nerval Poems

 

Gérard de Nerval was an influential 19th century French poet, playwright and translator.  He belonged to the French Romantic school of poets and was instrumental in getting French readers to appreciate similar work by German writers such as Goethe, Schiller and Klopstock through his translations of their poetry.  His later material delved into such areas as madness and the difference between fiction and ...