Bertolt Brecht was a well known poet and playwright in Germany before being forced to flee from Nazi oppression. He found a safe haven in the United States of America but did not remain there for the rest of his life. Known more for his theatre work than his poetry he was, nevertheless, responsible for the lyrics of a song that became ...
Bob Hicok is a contemporary American poet who was born in Michigan in 1960. He is a multi-award winning, much-published writer who once ran his own successful automotive die design business, leaving this to go into teaching. He will, no doubt, be proud of his writing output but I wonder if he has a little extra tinge of pride when he thinks ...
American writer Marge Piercy was born in 1936 in Michigan and is known for her vibrant poetry, novels and her deep involvement in the social issues that face us today. She came from working class, Jewish roots, at the tail end of the Great Depression, and was the first person in her family to attend university when she won a scholarship. Marge ...
A man who arguably had one of the greatest effects on the English language, Dr Samuel Johnson was born 1709 in Staffordshire. Credited with producing the first definitive English language dictionary, a feat which took him nine years, he was also a prolific essayist and poet. Samuel Johnson suffered various ailments as a youth, most importantly scrofula which left him with scars ...
Born at the turn of the 20th Century in 1896, Edmund Blunden is best known for his poetry and other writing that was greatly influenced by World War I. Raised in London, he went on to study at Oxford, until, at the age of 19, he was commissioned into the army and saw battle in both Ypres and the Somme, earning ...
