The name of John McCrae will be, forever, associated with his famous poem In Flanders Fields which was reportedly written the day after the funeral of a close friend who was killed at the second Battle of Ypres in May 1915. Lt Alexis Helmer had been a former medical student of McCrae’s and his death affected him so much that he penned ...
It is, understandably, quite difficult to establish clear facts about the life of someone born in the years BC (Before Christ), sometimes known as BCE (Before the Common Era). Scribes and scholars wrote things down but many of these records and parchments have disappeared in the two millennia that have passed since that time. It is, therefore, necessary to rely on legend ...
Ivor Bertie Gurney came into this world in Gloucester, England, August 28th 1890 to a father, David who worked as a tailor and mother Florence, a seamstress. From quite young he suffered from bi-polar disorder, a condition quite possibly inherited from his mother who was said to be unstable and highly-strung. Mental illness would come to affect Gurney severely in the last ...
In the 1950s there arose a group of American writers who called themselves the Beat Generation. The Beat Generation epitomised the new hippie culture of sex, drugs and rejection of traditional standards. Jack Kerouac described Gregory Corso as “a tough young kid from the Lower East Side who rose like an angel over the rooftops and sang Italian song as sweet ...
Born in the English county of Lincolnshire in 1926, Elizabeth Jennings was one of the most popular female British poets of the 20th Century. She is noted amongst a number of poets who were collectively part of The Movement that was devoted to the notion of English poetry and its place in the world. Although she suffered serious mental illness in ...
