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Born into the hustle and bustle of Manhattan in 1941, Billy Collins grew up to become one of America’s most prominent modern day poets. A professor at New York’s Lehman College, Collins was crowned Poet Laureate for the United States between 2001 and 2003. He has produced a number of poetry works including The Best Cigarette which became a bestseller in ...
Born in New York in 1940, Jack Prelutsky describes himself as a sensitive kid who had a bit of a rough time growing up in a poor neighbourhood. He had no inkling during his school days that he would grow up to be a successful children’s poet and seemed to have received little encouragement to do so at that time. Poetry bored ...
Throughout the history of poetry writing, it is fair to say, there have been so many poets who were genuinely unpleasant people. Perhaps being a famous, even revered, writer can lead someone into self-centredness at best. At worst they become so obsessed with getting it right, with producing the next “great work”, that they can easily forget that they are a ...
Frederic Ogden Nash ( 1902-1971) known as Ogden Nash to readers of his work is known for his children’s poems. His works have entertained children and adults alike since the creation of each work. In an era where such individuals as Will Eisner and Walt Disney were common names, Ogden Nash was the poetic voice to the child narrative. Comparative Style When looking ...
Khalil Gibran (1883-1931) was an American Immigrant poet. Born in a time when poverty prevailed in a majority of the populace, so was the family of Khalil Gibran. His mother was the daughter of a priest, which played a critical part in his life. As Gibran was a member of the poverty class, his education was non-formal. The education ...
When observing the poetry of Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822) one cannot separate the political views and rebellious nature of the man from his works. Ever in opposition to the English government and to the religious orders of his time (see his work The Necessity of Atheism), Percy Bysshe Shelley’s works come across as blunt statements regarding our existence, our political views, and ...
During the early days of the 20th Century Robert William Service brought the harsh life of the Yukon to life with poems such as The Shooting of Dan McGrew. Despite the populist nature of his prose and meaty descriptions of life in the gold rush days, Service was actually a humble bank clerk who had been born in England ...
Writer and dub poet Benjamin Zephaniah was born in the heartland of Birmingham in 1958 and has grown up to become one of Britain’s most well-known and much loved poets since the war. His own writing has always been strongly influenced by Jamaican music and poetry and what he likes to define as “street politics.” Although he was well-known to ...
The Massachusetts born poet, Anne Sexton, could best be described as a tortured soul who wrote in a highly controversial style. Her poems contained topics that, for the majority of people, were not seen as ‘right and proper’ in 1960s America. A so-called confessional poet, Sexton wrote quite openly and unashamedly about taboo subjects like menstruation, abortion, masturbation, incest, adultery, ...
We often think of the poets who were around during that terrible period in world history, the years covering the First World War, as being very few in number. It is true that only a small number became famous but, in fact, over two thousand soldiers spent their time both trying to survive the grim battlefields while writing poignant verse ...
