The English poet who eventually became known as Sir Stephen Spender, CBE was a writer whose main themes concerned social problems and the class struggles found in both Europe and America. He also wrote novels and essays and became Poet Laureate to the United States in 1965. He was born Stephen Harold Spender on the 28th February 1909 in Kensington, West London. His father ...
James Dickey was a 20th century American poet, novelist and university lecturer. His poetry output was substantial and highly regarded and he was chosen to recite one of his own compositions, The Strength of Fields, at the inauguration of President Jimmy Carter in 1977. He is perhaps best known though for his novel Deliverance which was turned into a 1972 movie starring Burt ...
William Jay Smith was an US born lyric poet with a wide appeal across the generations, happily writing for both adults and children. His long life spanned the 20th and 21st centuries and just fell short of the magical one hundred years. Amongst his many honours and awards was the appointment in 1968 as the Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress - ...
Richard Eberhart was a remarkable American award-winning poet and playwright whose long life spanned the early years of both the 20th and 21st centuries. His considerable output of poetry saw him publish at least a dozen books of verse and he won both a Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award for two of his collections. He was born Richard Ghormley Eberhart on the 5th April 1904 ...
Jane Kenyon was a 20th century American poet who was appointed Poet Laureate of New Hampshire shortly before her untimely death in 1995. She was also responsible for translating a number of works by the Russian poet Anna Akhmatova into English. Like many other poets before her she made regular contributions to a literary journal; in her case it was to Columbia: A Journal ...
Mary Oliver was a multi-award-winning US born poet that had a Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Award against her name. It was her fifth collection of poetry that won the Pulitzer, in 1984, with the title American Primitive. Over her lifetime she has been one of her country’s best-selling poets. She was born on the 10th September 1935 in a suburb of Cleveland, Ohio ...
Rosanna Warren is an acclaimed American poet, literary critic, university professor and scholar. She has also been involved in the editing of collections of translated works by French, Italian and Ancient Greek poets. One of her recent books was Fables of the Self: Studies in Lyric Poetry which was a 2008 title of literary criticism. She was born on the 27th July 1953 in unusual and ...
May Sarton was a Belgian-born American writer famous for her poetry, novels and a number of memoirs documenting her life at different stages. She was born Eleanore Marie Sarton on the 3rd May 1912 in Wondelgem, Belgium, a place which is now a suburb of the city of Ghent. Her father was a Belgian scientist who was a great philosophical thinker, striving to link science and ...
Galway Kinnell was an American Pulitzer Prize-winning writer whose collection of poetry called Selected Poems won him that award in 1982. He also served as the state of Vermont’s Poet Laureate between the years 1989-1993. He was born on the 1st February 1927 in the Rhode Island town of Providence although he spent all of his formative years in Pawtucket, close by. He was ...
With Presidents" Day coming up in the United States, we"re thinking a lot about Poets Laureate, the official poets of the nation. The Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress, as they"re formally known, is appointed by the Librarian of Congress for a one year term, serving from October to May. It"s fairly common, however, for the Librarian of Congress to renew a Poet Laureate"s term for an ...
