Born in the busy naval town of Portsmouth in 1828, George Meredith was a writer of fantasy novels and a prolific poet, producing such well known works as The Lark Ascending which was the influence for Vaughan Williams’ seminal musical arrangement of the same name. His mother died when he was barely five years old and in his teenage years George ...
Judith Viorst has enjoyed a full career of writing for newspapers and magazines while publishing a number of children’s books (both prose and poetry) and also some for adults. She became interested in the study of Freudian psychology in the late 1970s and, as a result, published a number of books on this subject. She displayed the more light hearted side of ...
Samuel Daniel is generally known as an English poet and historian who was, indeed, fortunate to be born at a glorious time in English history. The Elizabethan era was into its fourth year when Daniel was born and he grew up enjoying the benefits of this time of great learning and international adventures. This was a good time to be a ...
Here is a Serbian poet who grew up at a time of deep unrest across the whole of Europe. He fought as a partisan during WWII and was captured and interned in a Nazi concentration camp. Having survived that he lived through the oppressive times that saw communism dominate the whole of central and eastern Europe for decades. Despite the state’s efforts ...
Linda Pastan is an American poet and essay writer who is known chiefly for writing short poems about family life and motherhood. A populist poet, she brings a unique feminine perspective to issues such as ageing, loss, death and the fragility of family relationships. One of her most recent poems is Travelling Light, from 2011, and illustrates her style: I am only leaving you, ...
