Nicknamed ‘Bosie’, English poet and author Lord Alfred Douglas was born in 1870 in Worcestershire and is most notable for his relationship with literary giant Oscar Wilde that led to the Irish writer’s imprisonment. Brought up in a well-to-do family, Douglas attended school in Wokingham, went on to Winchester College and then entered Oxford but failed to graduate with ...
Poet and playwright James Elroy Flecker was born in 1884 in Lewisham, London, and went to school in Cheltenham where his father worked as a headmaster. His verses were greatly influenced by the French style Parnassism which grew out of the positivist movement of the early 19th century and, despite his short life, he wrote a number of collections the ...
American poet and novelist Laura Riding was born in New York at the beginning of 1901. She reached poetic maturity earlier than many of her compatriots, publishing a lengthy 500 page work of collected poems when she was still in her 30s but would renounce poetry altogether some ten years later. Riding was brought up by Jewish parents who originally came to ...
Imagine setting a simple challenge to almost anyone in the English speaking world regarding fondly remembered poems and songs from their childhood. Ask them to recite the opening lines of the first poem or song that comes to mind and there is a good chance that the majority would say: “Twinkle, twinkle, little star. How I wonder what you are”. It’s one ...
Joaquin Miller (his adopted pen name) was a “frontiersman poet” who lived at the time of great exploration across the American West, moving between mining towns and agricultural areas, spending time in California during the great Gold Rush period. He lived amongst the Modoc Indians for a year and, reputedly, took a Native American woman as his first wife, producing two children. ...
