Ōtomo no Yakamochi was an 8th century waka poet and statesman who lived during the Nara period of Japanese history. This covered the years 710-794 and was when Empress Gemmei established the capital of the country in the city that is now known as Nara for all but five years (740-745). Yakamochi belongs to an elite group of writers known as the Thirty Six Poetry ...
Osip Mandelstam was a Jewish Russian essayist and poet who was unfortunate to live at a time when intellectuals of his kind were cruelly persecuted by the Soviet authorities. He belonged to a literary group called the “Guild of Poets” who followed Acmeism, demonstrating compactness and clarity in their poetic expression. This movement’s name comes from a Greek word acme and it is ...
Nettie Palmer was an Australian poet and essayist who also became the most prominent literary critic in her country. She was born Janet Gertrude Palmer on the 18th August 1885 in Bendigo, Victoria and later acquired the nickname “Nettie”. Her parents were of Irish immigrant stock and raised a very bright child who excelled at the Presbyterian Ladies" College, Melbourne before going on ...
Orrick Johns was and American writer born in the late 19th century. He moved in elite literary circles and was able to count amongst his contemporaries the likes of Ernest Hemingway, T S Eliot and F Scott Fitzgerald. His work was admired by many, including fellow poet Sara Teasdale who conducted a long-running series of correspondence with him. A ...
Orlando Gibbons was an English writer and musician who lived during the late Tudor and early Jacobean periods. He was an accomplished keyboard player, specialising in the virginal and organ, and he established himself as England’s leading polyphonic composer during the early part of the 17th century. He was born in December 1583 in Oxford and his father, William, was one of the town’s ...
