We keep you updated on the world of poetry with our news roundups.
Lascelles Abercrombie was an accomplished English poet, literary critic and journalist who was sometimes referred to as the “Georgian Laureate”. In addition to his writing he occupied a number of significant academic positions at universities in Oxford, Leeds and Liverpool. He is most famous for being part of the so-called group of writers called the “Dymock Poets” during the period immediately before ...
Robert Binyon is well known as one of the First World War Poets who produced significant pieces of work that are remembered to this day. His most famous poem, For the Fallen, was written in the early days of the war, in September 1914. Four lines from it are quoted at every Remembrance Day service across the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth ...
Born in 1483 in Eisleben, Martin Luther is perhaps one of the most influential religious figures of the last millennium. His role in the Protestant Reformation and his excommunication by the Catholic Church was one of the first major challenges to the power of the Pope across Europe. Baptized as a Catholic, he spent most of his childhood growing up in ...
Born in Prague in 1901, Jaroslav Seifert was one of the most noted Czech poets and writers of the 20th Century and received the Nobel Prize in 1984. A critic of the communist regime at heart, he was at the forefront of the avant-garde movement and helped create, and was a regular contributor for, the artistic magazine Devětsil. Brought up in a ...
Born in 1882 in Leytonstone, John Drinkwater was a poet and dramatist who was perhaps best known for his plays about leading historical figures such as Lincoln and Oliver Cromwell. He was greatly influenced by his father who began as a school teacher but gave up his career to become an actor and try his hand at play-writing. In 1891, Drinkwater was ...
Dissenter and Christian preacher, John Bunyan was born in Elstow in 1628 and is most famous for his allegorical work Pilgrim’s Progress. He was a man who stood by his beliefs and was imprisoned several times for preaching without a license and he remains one of the more enigmatic figures of English history. Bunyan professed to being brought up in modest circumstances, ...
American poet Helen Hunt Jackson was born in 1830 and is most well-known for her tireless activism on the part of the indigenous Native American population. Brought up in Massachusetts by Unitarian parents, she was orphaned at an early age and sent to live with her aunt. She was educated initially at Ipswich Seminary and then went on to board ...
Born in 1797, George Moses Horton was a slave poet who was brought up in the Southern United States and was the first black American to have his work published in the region. He took his surname from plantation owner William Horton, growing up on an estate in North Carolina and then a tobacco farm in Chatham County. His education ...
Bhartrihari was a writer who lived through the second half of the fifth century. He wrote in the sacred Hindu language called Sanskrit and is believed to have produced at least two important pieces of work which became extremely influential. One was the definitive guide to Sanskrit grammar which portrayed a holistic view of the language spoken at that time. The second ...
If ever there were an American poet that could be immortalised by the writing of a single poem then Clement Clarke Moore was such a man. He will not have known it at the time that he wrote A Visit from St Nicholas purely to amuse his own children but this poem, when published in a New York newspaper just before the ...
