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Giovanni Boccaccio Poems

 

Italian poet Giovanni Boccaccio was born near Florence in 1313 and was one of the leading lights of the Renaissance, popular for the realism he brought to his verse compared to some of his contemporaries. His father was a merchant, and Boccaccio grew up in a privileged family, learning about and influenced by the works of Dante at an early age. Although ...

Izumi Shikibu Poems

 

Born at the end of the tenth century in the Heian period, Izumi Shikibu was a Japanese poet who was from an influential family in Echizen. Shikibu was part of a group of Japanese poets who were known as the 36 Immortals, selected from the three main periods of poetry by Fujiwara no Kinto. She is well-known for her romantic and ...

Giuseppe Ungaretti Poems

 

Born in Egypt in 1888, Giuseppe Ungaretti was one of the most influential Italian poets of the last century helping to develop the writing style that was known as Hermeticism, which grew out of the Symbolist school of thought. His first work of published poetry was produced whilst he was on the front line of World War I, fighting in the ...

Emma Lazarus Poems

 

Born in 1849 in New York, Emma Lazarus is perhaps best known for providing the poem adorning the plaque at the bottom of the Empire State Building, entitled The New Colossus. From a wealthy Jewish background, she was a precocious child who was largely tutored at home. Taking an interest in literature and poetry from early on, she also learned several ...

Kobayashi Issa Poems

 

The poet who became known as Kobayashi Issa was a Japanese exponent of the Haiku form of short poetry.  He learned this form at school in Tokyo under master teachers Sogan and Chikua.  The basic element of this form of poetry is that the writer is able to cleverly capture a specific image or feeling using sensory language.  This might be inspired ...

Katherine Philips Poems

 

Katherine Philips was one of the few female writers to emerge during the 17th century and, in her short lifetime, was responsible for a large number of poems which seem to have been written for the pleasure of her friends rather than for publication. She founded The Society of Friendship which had mainly female members. She was a multi-linguist and translated foreign ...

Francis Ledwidge Poems

 

Irish poet Francis Ledwidge was just 29 years old when he was killed on the battlefields of World War I. He was born in Slane in 1887, one of nine children in a family that lived on the edge of poverty though he was lucky to have the ethos of education drilled into him from an early age. His father died ...

Dame Mary Gilmore Poems

 

Born in 1865 in New South Wales, Dame Mary Gilmore was a socialist first and then a poet, and is one of the few Australians to have featured on their monetary system. The oldest born to a Scottish farmer and an Australian mother with roots in Ireland, she attended public school before the family moved to Downside. At school there, ...

Lucy Maud Montgomery Poems

 

Lucy Maud Montgomery was a Canadian writer who lived for her writing in spite of a traumatic childhood and a series of misfortunes in her personal relationships. Her writing output was substantial yet she only produced one book of poetry. Her series of “Anne” novels beginning with her most famous title Anne of Green Gables (published in 1908) turned into a life ...

Delmira Agustini Poems

 

Born in 1886 in Montevideo, Uruguay, Delmira Agustini is one of the most celebrated Latin American poets of the last century, known for her precocious talent and tragically short life. Her work was strictly modernist but she helped to redefine the tradition with her intensely erotic verse that looked at the world from a woman’s viewpoint. Agustini began to write poetry at ...