We keep you updated on the world of poetry with our news roundups.
Born in 1762 in King’s Sutton, Northamptonshire, William Lisle Bowles was a clergyman and poet who is most popularly remembered for his short collection of poems called Fourteen Sonnets. The son of a vicar and from a family that had to work hard to gather all their spare money to educate him, Bowles studied at Winchester College in his teens ...
Although he was born in Kent, in 1911, William Hart-Smith is considered one of Australia and New Zealand’s more important poets and writers. His youth was spent in England where he undertook most of his education before the family moved to New Zealand in 1924. At the age of just fifteen he began work as a radio mechanic, a job he ...
Born in 1832 Wiedenszahl, Wihelm Busch was a multifaceted writer and artist, widely known at the time for his comic stories and humorous verses which took a satirical swipe at the narrow minded lives of Germany’s city dwellers. He was brought up in a large family with stern parents who had an ethic of hard work to go alongside their strongly ...
Xavier Villaurrutia was a 20th century Mexican poet who was, perhaps, more famous for writing short plays. His most famous work was published in 1953, three years after his early death at the age of 47. He composed some theatrical dramas which were named Autos profanes. These were compiled in the work Poesía y teatro completes. While in his early thirties he was ...
There are a number of well-known English poets who wrote about the First World War, many of whom were on the battle fields of northern France when they did so. Lieutenant William Noel Hodgson, MC was one of their number. What makes him stand out though is that he wrote a poem that was published just two days before he became one ...
Born in the middle of the nineteenth century, Wilfrid Scawen Blunt was a controversial, politically-motivated writer who spent his early years travelling the world with the British Diplomatic Service, a profession that he entered at the age of eighteen. He enjoyed postings to Argentina, Greece and at a number of locations across Europe. This phase of his career ended at the age ...
Thomas Tusser was a 16th century English poet, perhaps one of the earliest known of the pastoral English poets. A farmer first, he turned to poetry and, in 1557, he produced a long piece of work called Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry. Although set to verse he wrote it as an instructional aide to other farmers and it became his best known ...
Samuel Lover was born in Dublin at the end of the 18th century and his artistic talents made him one of Ireland’s best known and best loved songwriters. He also wrote novels and was an able poet. Added to all this he was a talented portrait painter and made a speciality of painting miniatures which were very popular at that time. ...
Born in 1869, in Swanmore, Hampshire, writer and teacher Stephen Leacock moved to Canada at an early age and became one of the best known humorists of his time. His family had made their money from running plantations in Madeira and there was a strong history associated with the British Empire. When Leacock was just 6 years old, his father decided to ...
Poet and writer Thomas Pringle was born in Roxburghshire in Scotland in 1789 and counted amongst his friends Sir Walter Scott. He is perhaps most strongly linked to South African poetry after spending some years in the country and was one of the first English writers to describe the region and the people who lived there. Pringle’s father was a farmer ...
