A poet with a taste for the spiritual, Max Ehrmann was born in Indiana in 1872. His parents were from Bavaria, and he was educated in the small town of Terre Haute whilst attending a German Methodist church nearby. He is probably best known for his poem Desiderata that has often been quoted and misquoted down through the years, even to ...
Paul Verlaine was a much loved poet in his native France and even when, in his final years, he had descended into a drink and drug-fuelled pit of despair, the art-loving people of Paris tried hard to lift him out of this self-inflicted trough, supporting him with both financial and welfare assistance. It was too late though and his life was cut ...
Poet, novelist and historian Arna Wendell Bontemps was born October 13th 1902 in Alexandria, Louisiana. His mother Maria Pembroke was a schoolteacher and his father Paul Bontemps was a bricklayer. His father was keen for Arna to follow him in the bricklaying trade but young Arna was determined to better himself and do well in school. Like many other black families migrating ...
American writer Edwin Arlington Robinson, born December 22nd 1869, seemed to have an unfortunate start to his life. It is said that his parents were so disappointed at not having a girl they couldn’t even think of a name for him when he was born, and instead his name was drawn out of a hat by tourists at a holiday resort. The ...
Of mixed race ancestry, Jean Toomer was born in 1894 and was seen as one of the most important proponents of modernism and a primer mover in the cultural movement the Harlem Renaissance of the time. Although his mother was white, his father’s history was steeped in the slave culture of 19th Century Georgia. In his early days, Toomer attended segregated ...
