Poetry blog

We keep you updated on the world of poetry with our news roundups.

Recent posts

John Burroughs Poems

 

One of the great conservationists of the 19th Century, John Burroughs was also a prolific essayist on the natural world and author of poems such as The Bobolink and Waiting. He was born the seventh of ten children in Roxbury, New York, in 1837 and spent much of his youth out in the wilds near the Catskills Mountains. From an early age ...

James Clerk Maxwell Poems

 

Considered one of the most influential scientists of the 19th Century, James Clerk Maxwell also composed his own poetry. He was born into a family of decent means in Edinburgh in 1831, the son of an advocate, and was known to possess an inquiring mind from a very young age. By the time he was 8, under the tutelage of ...

James Dean Poems

 

Better known as an iconic film star of the 50s, James Dean also wrote poetry, particularly in the 5 year period before his untimely death. He was born in Marion, Indiana, in 1951, the son of a farmer who later retrained to work in dentistry. The family moved to California where Dean went to school in Brentwood, Los Angeles until he ...

Jami Poems

 

Jami was a 15th century Persian poet and theologian from the school of Ibn Arabi. A great scholar and mystical man, Jami also composed lyrics and idylls and was a respected historian. Jami was born in August 1414 and most accounts put his place of birth as Jam which is now known as Ghor Province in Afghanistan. An alternative place of birth is a ...

James Shirley Poems

 

James Shirley (sometimes spelled Sherley) was a 17th century English poet and playwright. His output of plays was considerable during the period 1625-42 and only came to an abrupt halt because of the puritanical government edict that all theatres should be closed. This was a golden age for writers of dramatic verse and most of the plays that he penned were performed ...

James Mangan Poems

 

The Irish poet James Clarence Mangan rose from a fairly humble background in the early 19th century to become one of his country’s most accomplished writers. He wasn’t privileged enough to enjoy a great education and, in fact, attended a number of different schools. While at a Jesuit school he studied languages to the point where he would eventually produce decent translations ...

Joel Barlow Poems

 

Joel Barlow was an American poet who was well known for two epic, somewhat controversial, pieces of work concerning Christopher Columbus. Vision of Columbus ran to nine books and later he expanded on the original to produce The Columbiad which was ten books in length. None of this work was particularly popular at the time and, in fact, attracted ridicule from many ...

John Fletcher Poems

 

John Fletcher was a distinguished Jacobean playwright who has been credited with over fifty plays, although many of these were written in collaboration with other writers such as Philip Massinger and Francis Beaumont. His plays had a recognisable style and were often referred to as written in the “Fletcherian textual profile” or “in the Fletcher canon”. He was also a poet ...

John O’Brien Poems

 

Born in 1878 in New South Wales, John O’Brien was the pen name for writer and poet Patrick Joseph Hartigan who spent most of his life working for the Catholic faith both as a priest and a school inspector. His father was a merchant and both his parents came originally from Irish stock and for the large part of his youth ...

Jones Very Poems

 

Born in Salem in Massachusetts, poet and writer Jones Very was born into a free thinking family and because of his sea faring father had a life time love of the ocean. His father used to take Very on sea trips, first to Russia and then New Orleans but unfortunately he died on one of the return journeys after catching a ...