We keep you updated on the world of poetry with our news roundups.
Donald Davidson was an American poet, teacher and literary critic with a strong social conscience. He was one of the founding members of a group called The Fugitives. They were scholars at the Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee who wrote poems and essays on social themes such as black segregation in the south and their name was taken from the title of a ...
Dinah Craik was a 19th century English poet and novelist. Some of her work is credited to Mrs Craik while her earlier efforts were published under her maiden name of Mulock. A writer of great imagination she initially wrote for children, although she did not limit herself to this field of literature as time went by. She was born Dinah Maria Mulock on ...
Donald Marquis was a humorous writer of poetry, a novelist, playwright and a famous newspaper columnist who has his place in American literary history as the creator of such characters as Archy & Mehitabel, who were a cockroach and alley cat, and a “hip flask philosopher” called The Old Soak. Add Warty Bliggens the Toad and Freddy the Rat and you will ...
Dorothea Mackellar, OBE was an Australian poet and writer of fiction who has been credited with the composition of what is, arguably, Australia’s best loved poem. She wrote the patriotic My Country in 1904 when she was in England and the wistful, plaintive tone of the poem leaves the reader in no doubt how homesick she was for the country she loved. Her “bush” poetry ...
David Mallet was an 18th century Scottish poet and dramatist. He changed his name from Malloch when he moved to London in 1723, and has been described by some historians as an “unpopular” Scotsman. Perhaps the Scots did not like the fact that he anglicised his name. One of his most famous pieces of work was a masque called Alfred, co-written in 1740 ...
Bob Flanagan was an American poet and musician who was also known as a performance artist, often specialising in sado-masochistic acts. He was born on the 26th December 1952 in New York City but the family moved to Glendale, California not long after Bob was born. He was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis when very young and his doctors did not think he would ...
Amos Bronson Alcott was a 19th century American writer, philosopher and experimental teacher. In his educational role he turned the traditional teaching method on its head, preferring to engage his students in conversation rather than being the autocratic figure at the front lecturing to a silent class. He had a great social conscience outside of the classroom as well, being a champion ...
Catherine Pozzi was a French poet who lived her life in and around the literary salons of Paris, befriending many famous artists and writers along the way. She had a good start in life, coming from a cultured and wealthy family. She was a keen and regular diarist and she kept a journal of her life that ran to some forty volumes. It ...
Capel Lofft, his first name sometimes written as Capell, was an English lawyer but he supplemented this with occasional forays into writing poetry. He had outspoken political views and campaigned against those causes that he felt strongly about. He belonged to the Whig party and was considered to have “Foxite” tendencies within that party. Lofft came from a family of intellectuals and scholars, ...
Carl Michael Bellman was an 18th century Swedish poet and musician who also holds a significant position in the history of his country’s song writing tradition. He was held in high regard by King Gustav III of Sweden who called him “the master improviser”. His two most famous pieces of work were collections of poetry that were set to music. Fredman’s Songs and ...
