Hovhannes Shiraz was a popular Armenian writer, loved and revered by his fellow countrymen for his writing and for his stance against the government. He was born into great poverty on the 27th April 1915, in Alexandropol, which was part of the Russian Empire. His mother Astghik had been widowed like so many others in the 1915 extermination and deportation of Armenian ...
American poet Larry Levis, born September 30th 1946 in Fresno California, grew up enjoying a rural life of tractor driving and tending grapevines. These experiences, among the Mexican migrant workers on the family farm and later among the tough steel-workers, would influence much of his semi-surrealist poetry. The California landscape in particular would come to have a deep and lasting effect on ...
Born in 1889 in Narbonne, Pierre Reverdy was the epitome of the French poet, influenced by the cubist and surrealist movements of the early 20th Century, and given to exploring loneliness and fear for the spiritual side of life. He was once hailed as the ‘greatest poet alive’ by ardent surrealists and he remains an important figure in world literature with ...
Francis Scott Key, the man who would go on to write the lyrics to the Star- Spangled Banner, was born into a wealthy family in Maryland on August 1st 1779. His father was Captain John Ross Key and his mother was Ann Phoebe Penn Dagworthy. His paternal grandparents were originally from London, England. The family owned a plantation at Terra Rubra, which ...
Multi-award winning American poet and essayist Howard Nemerov was the product of an art-loving family. His father David and mother Gertrude were connoisseurs of art and photography and his sister Diane became a famous photographer. He was the Poet Laureate to the United States from 1988 to 1990, having in 1963/64 been poetry consultant to the Library of Congress and Chancellor of the ...
