We keep you updated on the world of poetry with our news roundups.
John Donne's poetry has transcended both time and language, speaking to readers across ages and continents, as fresh and meaningful today as it was when written. John Donne's life was as interesting and controversial as his poetry. Born in London in 1572 to a well-to-do Catholic family at a time when Catholicism was unpopular in England, John Donne, along with his ...
Almost unknown as a poet in her own lifetime in the Victorian era, Emily Dickinson came to be known as one of the foremost of American poets after her work was rediscovered in the 20th century. Modern readers were able to appreciate what 19th century readers were not; Dickinson's short, often untitled poems, with their unusual rhyming schemes and non-standard ...
Idiosyncratic, utterly original poet e.e. cummings ushered in the modern era of poetry with his idiomatic, conversational verse that captured the beauty of human speech. Edward Estlin Cummings was born in 1894 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. His father was sociology and political science professor at Harvard University, but left Harvard when Edward Estlin Cummings was a small child to become an ordained minister ...
A poet ought not to pick nature’s pocket. Let him borrow, and so borrow as to repay by the very act of borrowing. Examine nature accurately, but write from recollection, and trust more to the imagination than the memory. ~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge No mere pickpocket, Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poetry often melded recollection and imagination into verse that both borrowed from nature ...
The whimsical world of Lewis Carroll may be best known through his novels Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, but his poetry is infused with the same clever word play and imagination for which his novels are regarded. Lewis Carroll was born Charles Lutwidge Dodgson in 1832 in the parsonage of Daresbury in Cheshire, England. The third of ...
Poet Robert Browning, like his wife, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, achieved fame close to notoriety in the Victorian era, due in part to his accomplished poetry, and in some measure to the romantic tale of his and Elizabeth Barrett Browning"s marriage and life. Robert Browning was born near London, England, in 1812 to Robert and Sarah Anna Browning. Browning"s unusual family no ...
The epitome of the Victorian poet, Elizabeth Barrett Browning is one of few poets whose work was not only widely appreciated during her lifetime, but whose verses have also entered the language of popular culture in such a way that her poems seem to have lives of their own. Elizabeth Barrett Browning's life reads like the kind of mid-1930s Hollywood melodrama that ...
Although she is better known for her novel Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë (1818-1848) also managed in her short lifetime to write many accomplished poems which display the same mystical ingenuity that her only published novel has become famous for. Born in Yorkshire, in the north of England, Emily Brontë was the daughter of a reverend and writer who instilled in Emily and ...
By turns whimsical and apocalyptic, brilliant and yet somehow simple, British poet William Blake (1757-1827) expanded the boundaries of poetry both with language and visuals to create a body of work that has become among the most beloved in the English language. Known more for his visual arts than his poetry in his lifetime, Blake's poetry was often illustrated by his own ...
The art of losing isn’t hard to master; so many things seem filled with the intent to be lost that their loss is no disaster. ~ Elizabeth Bishop Esso cans. Cats named Minnow. Fish houses. All the detritus of everyday life, scenes and items and even people destined for obsolescence - these are are subjects that Elizabeth Bishop captured ...
