We keep you updated on the world of poetry with our news roundups.
It is, understandably, quite difficult to establish clear facts about the life of someone born in the years BC (Before Christ), sometimes known as BCE (Before the Common Era). Scribes and scholars wrote things down but many of these records and parchments have disappeared in the two millennia that have passed since that time. It is, therefore, necessary to rely on legend ...
Ivor Bertie Gurney came into this world in Gloucester, England, August 28th 1890 to a father, David who worked as a tailor and mother Florence, a seamstress. From quite young he suffered from bi-polar disorder, a condition quite possibly inherited from his mother who was said to be unstable and highly-strung. Mental illness would come to affect Gurney severely in the last ...
In the 1950s there arose a group of American writers who called themselves the Beat Generation. The Beat Generation epitomised the new hippie culture of sex, drugs and rejection of traditional standards. Jack Kerouac described Gregory Corso as “a tough young kid from the Lower East Side who rose like an angel over the rooftops and sang Italian song as sweet ...
Born in the English county of Lincolnshire in 1926, Elizabeth Jennings was one of the most popular female British poets of the 20th Century. She is noted amongst a number of poets who were collectively part of The Movement that was devoted to the notion of English poetry and its place in the world. Although she suffered serious mental illness in ...
Writer of hymns and popular poet, William Cowper was born in Hertfordshire in 1731 and was seen by many of his contemporaries as one of the foremost artists of his time. Throughout his life he chose to write about normal, everyday events and had a love of the country that often featured in his works. His father was a rector but ...
Nissim Ezekiel was an Indian-born poet of Jewish descent and has been described as the “father of post-independence Indian verse in English”. He had a number of collections of poetry published which were very popular and some, such as The Night Of The Scorpion, and the anti-jingoism poem The Patriot, are standard verses still studied in some British and Indian schools. He ...
Born in 1716 in London, Thomas Gray was a poet and professor who is perhaps most well-known for the poem Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard that was inspired by the sudden passing of his poet friend Richard West. Gray was from a large family of 12 but was the only one to survive, his father suffered from mental illness, and ...
Poet Ruben Dario was born in Nicaragua in 1867 and was perhaps one of the best exponents of the literary movement modernismo that arose in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Brought up by an aunt and uncle in Leon, Dario went to several schools and was reading a wide range of books by an early age. He wrote his ...
Paul Éluard was a prolific writer of poetry with his first published collections appearing when he was 22 years old followed by more than seventy others. Having seen life in the trenches during the First World War he was no stranger to misery and suffering and he maintained a strong desire to change the world for the better. He was hampered by ...
Born in Belfast in 1907, Louis MacNeice was a poet, greatly influenced by W.H. Auden, who was much loved by his contemporaries and known for his relaxed and honest style. His early life was spent in County Antrim and he was deeply affected by the death of his mother when he was just six years old. His father remarried and ...
