All names in this Index are by birth-certificate, which may not be the name by which you know them.
At the top left-hand corner of every screen there is a flat rectangular box with an icon of a magnifying-glass: your search bar. You may well find it easier to find the person you are seeking there.
I
have not included any of the Troubadours or Trobairitz on this list, as they have their own
pages (or will do, when I finish those essays!)
Matthew Arnold (born Dec 24 1822;
died April 15 1888): bio and poems here; his dad can be
found among the Educators
Anna Laetitia Barbauld (née Aikin, and published
her first volume of poems under that name) (born June 20 1743; died March 9
1825): here and on Oct 2
Max Alexandre,
though he signed his books as Léon David Morven
le Gaëlique, and is among
the Illustrious
Illustrators as Max Jacob) (born July 12 1876; victim of the
Nazi occupation of France on March 4 1944): the full tale on Aug 19; dinner chez Matisse on Dec 12;
his Quimper website here – his poems here
Durante di Alighiero degli Alighieri (Dante) (born 1265; died September
14 1321): learning the sonnet from Immanuel Giudeo on Jan 13,
expelled from Florence on Jan 27;
honoured by Sam Beckett on April 13, Mo
Mowlam on April 24, and Victor Hugo on Oct
18; in his tomb in Ravenna on June 24;
alongside Ariosto on Sept 8, and Vergil
on Oct 15; eponymised on March 11 and Aug
24; referenced on Jan 3, Jan 8, March 30,
June 11 and Sept 4
Anonymous – the only name available if I am to make this list by
writers rather than by titles; the complete library of his (it cannot be “her”;
see Woman-Blindness) work is not included here,
but I am including Beowulf, which gets mentions on April 18 and June 24: the early Aenglish text here, modern
translation here,
SparkNotes summary here (well I
know you’re not going to actually read the poem, not even in modern translation,
but this will provide a sufficient cheat-sheet for your essay or exam)
Archilochus: “(flourished c. 650 bce, Paros
[Cyclades, Greece]) was a poet and soldier, the earliest Greek writer of
iambic, elegiac, and personal lyric poetry” according to Britannica. Describing
an eclipse on April 6, which is why he is listed among the Scientific Achievements on Jan 1, and the E,M&C2 page, though he
wasn’t actually a scientist - bio here
Ludovico Ariosto: (born Sept 8 1474; died
July 6 1533): poems and bio here
Wystan Hugh (W.H) Auden: (born Feb 21
1907; died September 29 1973): also mentioned on May
2
Elizabeth Moulton-Barrett (born March 6 1806; died June 29 1861): married
to Robert Browning on Sept 12; eulogising George
Sand on her listing among the serious
scribes
Ricardo Neftalí Reyes Basoalto (Pablo Neruda): born on July 12 (died on September 23 1973)): kicked out by
coup (isn't that a splendid use of alliteration! he would be proud of me) on September 11; photographed on Feb 8, where you
will also find
the source of his pseudonym
Charles Pierre Baudelaire (born April 9 1821; died
August 31 1867): quoted on Jan 4; born on April 9; "Les Fleurs du Mal” published on June 25, but banned on Jan 8; mentioned on Jan 5; some of his poems here; the complete
“Fleurs” here
William Blake (born November 28 1757; died August 12 1827): among the
Bunhill dissenters on Nov 28; quoted
on Dec 1; mentioned on April 27 [also among
the illustrious illustrators] – his website here
Rupert Chawner Brooke: (born Aug 3 1887; died April 23 1915): his website here
Robert Browning
(born May 7 1812; died December 12 1889): “Pied Piper” mentioned on March 15 and April
18, its
history on July 22; the dramatic monologue on April 6; Fra Lippo Lippi
on May 5; born on May
7; Andrea
del Sarto on July 14; married to Elizabeth
Moulton-Barrett on Sept
12 – his website here
Robert (“Rabbie”) Burns (born Jan 25
1759; died July 21 1796): the museum at his birthplace here; the rites of Burns
Night here; poems and bio here; he is also on the Scots & Cymru page
George Gordon, 6th Baron Byron: born Jan 22 1788 (died April 19 1824); Feb 1 and March 11 for Mary
Shelley; Feb
23 for the Keats
piece from my biography of Byron, “A Small Drop of Ink” (another marketing plug
on March 25); April 19 for his death; May 3 for him swimming the
Hellespont; June 5 for
daughter Ada Lovelace; Aug
13 for Edward Trelawney; Dec 20 for his maiden speech; April 2, June
30, Aug 10, Dec 2 and Dec 4 for passing mentions - and for anything else,
buy my book ”A Small Drop Of Ink” (yes, I know, the website misses out the
“small”)
Lieutenant William Ekenhead of the HMS Salsette, accompanied Byron across the Hellespont on May 3; map and
route here; drowning in captaincy as the end of his sad tale here
John Cam Hobhouse (1786-1869),
Baron Broughton: how come it was Ekenhead and not him who swam
with Byron on May 3? bio here
Edward Trelawney, and his book about Byron, can be found among the serious
scribes
Elizabeth (Eliza) Carter (born December
16 1717; died February 19 1806): among the Bluestockings on Oct 2; bio and poems here
Guido Cavalcanti (born circa 1255; died August 27
1300): Dante’s “first friend”, and the founding
poet of the “Dolce Stil Novo”, on June 24 – bio here; poems here
Thomas Chatterton (aka Thomas
Rowley, Decimus): born Nov 20 1752; faked everything except his suicide, which was on August
24 1770 – bio here; poems here
Geoffrey Chaucer (birthdate unknown; died October 25
1400): Feb 23, also March 8 and Dec 29; known for his "Canterbury Tales",
but has anyone ever read "The Book of the Duchess", "The House
of Fame", "The Legend of Good Women", "Troilus and Criseyde"...
what else did he write? - complete works here, including his
translation of "Le Roman de la Rose", here (though there is much dispute as to
whether or not this is his translation)
Jean Clopinel, or possibly Chopinel,
but remembered as Jean de Meun from
his birthplace (though some record that version of his name with a final “g”):
completed “Le Romance de la Rose” on
Jan 13; see Guillaume
de Lorris, below; bio here; his version of the Rose here
Jean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau (born July 5 1889; died October 11 1963): painting Max Jacob on August 19 - French poet, novelist, dramatist, designer, boxing manager, playwright
and ... websites for his art and websites for his poetry; former here, latter here; also among
the Illustrious Illustrators
Leonard Norman Cohen (born September 21 1934; died November 7
2016): quoted on Feb 11, April 10 and Nov
13;
sleeping with gypsies on May 21; hall of fame on June 20; not crazy and reporting on Sept 11; born Sept
21;
mentioned on Nov 28 - here for his poetry and his novels, but
also among the Musical Maestros for his songs –
his website here
Samuel Taylor Coleridge: (born Oct 21
1772; died July 25 1834): one of Joseph Johnson's
circle of radical thinkers on April 27;
mentioned on Feb 28
and Sept 28;
the Man from Porlock gets a mention on April 1 - bio and
poems here
William Cowper (pronounced Cooper): (born Nov 26 1731;
died April 25 1800): hymns as well as poems and his translation of Homer; his website here
edward estlin Cummings (born Oct 14 1894; died September 3 1962):
bio and poems here
Emily Elizabeth Dickinson: (born Dec 10
1830; died May 15 1886): bio and poems here
Hilda Doolittle (HD) (born
Sept 10 1886; died September 27
1961): bio here, bio and poems here
Isidore Lucien Ducasse - Comte de Lautréamont was his pseudonym (born April 4 1846 in Uruguay;
died November 24 1870 in Paris): a mere passing mention on Jan 5, but the hint at his works is what matters: “Les
Chants de Maldoror” and “Poésies”, two of the most influential works of modern
lit, and what might he have achieved had he lived beyond the age of 24 (why did
he die so young? look at the date: Paris was under siege and living conditions
were disgusting; but in his case there may have been police involvement: click here
P.L (Paul Laurence) Dunbar: born June 27 1872; died Feb 9 1906] [and therefore in “A Journey In Time”]
– bio and lots of poems here
William Dean Howells: applause for P.L. Dunbar on Feb 9
Carol Anne Duffy: banned on Jan 8 – poet laureate from 2009-2019, the
first woman to get that rather meaningless title
T.S
(Thomas Stearns) Eliot (born Sept 26 1888; buried
beneath the lilacs on Jan 4 1965): quoted on Jan 24;
turned down Tippett on
March 19; Harold Bloom on
July 11;
insinuated on July 3 and 13
Anne-Marie Fiquet Le Page (though remembered by her married-name as Madame du Boccage): role-modelling Mme Verdurin on Oct 5; but here for her own poetry (and plays,
and translations, and letters) (Ancien Régime page of "Woman-Blindness")
Edward FitzGerald (born March 31 1809; died June 14 1883):
translated the “Rubáiyát” of Omar Khayyám on March 6, though he invented the title; “Rubáiyát” in Arabic
simply mean “quatrains”. He also invented the last name - well, and most
unusually, his dad used his wife’s name, and Edward kept it: on his birth
certificate he was a Purcell
Quintus Horatius Flaccus (Horace) (born Dec 8 65 BCE; died November 28 8 BCE): bio here, complete poems here
Marie de France (Dame Marie) lived somewhere between 1160 and
1215: not actually a Trobairitz, but their
inspiration and a wonderful poet and translator ("Aesop’s Fables" her
best remembered), in multiple languages, on January 13 – bio here, the lays here and here
Robert Lee Frost (born
March 26 1874; died January 29 1963):
quoted on Feb 22; the logical place
to look him up is the Academy of American Poets: how could I not take that
road? click here
Yevgeny Aleksandrovich Gangnus (Yevtushenko was his mum’s name and presumably he took it
because Gangnus just doesn’t work for a poet): born July
18 1932; died April 1 2017); mentioned re Mandelstam on Jan 8 – see my piece on Simone de Beauvoir among the Philosophers for his bio and work; and on Private Collection for his "Babi Yar"; poems here
Irwin Alan Ginsberg (born June 3 1926; died April 5
1997): Howled into banishment on Jan 8 and Dec 6; and technically, given
that he became a serious Buddhist, he should be among the reverend writers;
bio and poems here; his interview with Bob Dylan here
Immanuel Giudeo, Immanuel of Rome (born
circa 1261 in Moorish Spain; died circa 1328): teaching Dante the sonnet on Jan 13 – bio here and here
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe:
born Aug 28 1749; died March 22 1832): Britannica
describes him as “a German poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, statesman,
theatre director, critic, and amateur artist“, so he should really be on
several lists - but isn’t that, shouldn’t that, be
true of all the poetikos? bio here; Goethe the scientist here; the institute that bears his name here
Thomas Gray: (born Dec 26 1716; died July 30 1771): bio here; his website here
Nikolai Stepanovich Gumilev (born April 15 1886; executed by the Soviet secret police on August 26 1921): reaching his Acme on Aug 20 - bio here (not to be confused with the dissident Soviet historian Lev Nikolayevich Gumilev, who does not yet have any mention but this one on this blog: click here for more on him from his disciples; here for a more neutral view; and why am I mentioning him? because Nikolai Stepanovich was his father, and Anna Akhmatova his mother) – bio and family photo here; poems here and here
Anne Gray Harvey (Sexton) (born Nov 9 1928; committed suicide on October 4 1974): at McLeans with Lowell and Plath on Nov 17; bio and poems here; the fatuous debate over her 1967 Pulitzer Prize here
Heinrich (Harry) Heine (later forced to rename himself Christian Johann Heinrich Heine) (born Dec 13 1797; died February 17 1856): burned to a cinder on May 10 (see also Aug 27 and Dec 6); and remember: “Dort, wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man am Ende auch Menschen” - bio here, poems here
William Ernest Henley (born August 23 1849; died July 11 1903): Invicted on June 24: try here and link him to Terry Fox (June 28), Frida Kahlo (Sept 17), Helen Keller (also June 28) et al: “Henley was a close friend of Robert Louis Stevenson, who reportedly based his Long John Silver character in Treasure Island in part on Henley.” Once you know his story, the poem Invictus takes on a whole new dimension of Zero Positivism] – bio and portraits here, most of his books here
Alfred Edward (A.E) Housman: born March 26 1859; died April 30 1936): bio and portraits here; his “Shropshire Lad” here (worth a comparison with Betjeman’s? here – I don’t think so)
Edward James (Ted) Hughes: (born Aug 17 1930; died October 28 1998): his website, here, has everything you need
James Henry Leigh Hunt: (born Oct 19 1784; died August 28 1859); wrote “Hero and Leander” on May 3 (though only on the MM page); and lots of stuff about him on the Hampstead page of P’s London
Leander (here because this was probably Hunt's best poem) - no known surname, the boyfriend
of Hero, which you would think would have
been Heroine as she was a girl. Mentioned on May 3 because
it was he who Byron was imitating when he swam the
Hellespont, somewhat unheroically it must be said. The tale here; Kit Marlowe’s version
here, Leigh Hunt’s here
John Keats: (born October 31 1795;
died Feb 23 1821 (but referenced on Jan 22): autumnal on Sept 19; bio here; his house
and library here and here; poems here – and
see my life
of Byron
for his death in Italy
Thomas (Tom) Keats (1799-1818):
younger brother of poet John, who once wrote, in a letter to a friend, “Do you
not see how necessary a world of pains and troubles is to school an
intelligence and make it a soul?” – I wonder if John was thinking of Tom on Feb 23?
Wilhelm Albert Włodzimierz
Apolinary Kostrowicki (Guillaume Apollinaire) (born Aug 26 1880;
died November 9 1918): the man who came coined the terms Surrealism, Cubism and
Orphism; “Zone” on March 11; chez Matisse on Aug
19; bio here, poems here
Philip Arthur Larkin: (born Aug 9
1922; died December 2 1985): and on this page, despite the fact that by
profession he was a librarian; bio here, poems here and here, the librarian here (the papers now
stored there here)
Emma Lazarus: (born July 22
1849; died November 19 1887): her New Colussus is in my Private
Collection,
here; bio and poems here
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (born February 27 1807; died March 24 1882): his
website here ; The Howe Tavern, as it should be called, not The
Wayside Inn, on March 15 (its brochure here); Paul
Revere on April
18
William Dawes Jr (born April 6 1745; died February
25 1799): not even mentioned by Longfellow in his
poem, but had he got there first it would have been called “The Midnight Ride
of William Dawes”, not that of Paul Revere - see April 18 for him and all the other minor figures involved in
the tale: the Governor, General Thomas Gage, with Major John Pitcairn and
Captain John Parker; also Samuel Adams and John Hancock, the leaders of the
"Sons of Liberty", and Samuel Prescott. Click here for Dawes’ bio
Amy Lawrence Lowell: born Feb 9
1874; died May 12 1925): bio here, poems here; and who knew she
was pen-pals with DHL! click here
James Russell Lowell (born February 22 1819; died August 12 1891) bio and poems here
Robert Traill Spence Lowell (born March 1 1917; died September 12 1977):
draft-dodging on Oct 13; tutoring Anne Sexton on Nov
9; sharing a slot at McLean’s with her and Sylvia Plath on Nov
17; mentioned on Feb 9;
mentioned ironically on Dec 6 – bio and poems here; receiving the National Book Award here
Anne Malet de Graville (circa
1490-circa 1540): steadfast in her steadfastness on Dec
14 and the mediaeval page of Woman-Blindness
Osip Emilyevich Mandelstam
(born January 14 1891; died December 27 1938): banished on Jan 8; saved by Pasternak on Feb 10
(see also Oct 23); read by Yevtushenko
on July 18; shared a lover with Modigliani on July 12; gets a mention on Aug 12, but not on Aug 20 - bio here, poems here and here, but see my novel “Going
To The Wall”,
and pieces on Private Collection, here, here and here
Marguerite de
Navarre, though you may find
her encyclopaediaed as Marguerite of Angoulême, or even
Marguerite of
Valois-Angoulême; and sobriqueted as: "The Mother of the
Renaissance": the bridge
between the Mediaeval age and the Ancien Régime on April 11; her mum, Louise de
Savoie, can be found among the journal-keepers on the page of the serious scribes, and both on the mediaeval page of Woman-Blindness
Publius Vergilius Maro (Vergil
or Virgil) (born Oct 15 70 BCE; died September 21 19 BCE): his
“Georgics” translated by Voß
on Feb 8; Feb
28 debates his spelling; mentioned on March
30 –
bio here and here, the full “Aeneid” here; other writings here
Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky: born on July 19 1893; died April 14
1930): mentioned on July 18
– bio and poems here
Festus Claudius
(“Claude”) McKay (born September 15 1890; died May 22 1948): in the Kremlin with George Padmore on June 28 - poems and bio here
Melesigenes of Smyrna (Hómēros in
Greek, Homer in
English): why the name on Feb 8;
fully clothed on March
13; major part on June 11
and Aug 15;
mentions on April 9, June 16, June 24
and Nov 3 - others would place him among the historians,
because aren’t his two great works historical accounts? Well, actually, no,
like the first eight books of the Jewish scriptures, and the first four books
of the Christian, they are entirely mythology presented as pseudo-history, and
so they belong with the poets; bio here (though I remain to be convinced that he was a
single man rather than, like the Biblical prophets, the title of the head of
the institution – which makes more sense when you consider his estimated
birthdate could be anywhere in a four hundred year period; it probably was -
Isaiah, in the Jewish scriptures, covers
the same, plus the Christian one a half a millennium later); complete works here
Menelaus (mythological
characters don’t have birth and death dates): getting Helen back on
June 11
Helen of Troy: or Sparta really: No family name
(she was the daughter of Zeus, the king of the gods, and Leda, a mortal woman
who was the wife of the Spartan king Tyndareus, so she isn’t really a
historical personage anyway, but mythological, like the Bible-characters and
the Arthurian). Abducted on June 11
John Milton (born Dec 9 1608;
died November 8 1674): his street in London here (go to P’s London), though it
isn’t the street on which he was born, nor the street where he lived; the bio here gives the former,
the latter here: "Finally
after his marriage to his third wife, Elizabeth Minshull in 1663, Milton and
his bride took up residence at 125 Bunhill Row which, his most recent
biographer, Barbara Lewlaski, informs us, 'was to be his London residence
for the rest of his life'" [this needs a map! and guess what - the second link has one]
Harriet Monroe: (born Dec 23
1860; died September 26 1936): bio here, poems here
François de Montcorbier, or sometimes François
des Loges (François Villon only
in his poetry) (born 1431; died ?): my stolen version of his tale on Jan 5; complete poems in French here; selected poems in
translation here
Richard Purdy
Wilbur (born March 1 1921; died October 14 2017: poetry and translations from
the classics here; his
translation of Villon's
Epitaph, "The Ballade Of The Hanged Men" is on Jan 5 [he comes from Belmont and
shares dates, so I wonder if he knew the Lowell crowd]
Camille
de Morel (1547-1611) poetesse invisible, on the Internet anyway; visible on this
blog on the Ancien Régime page of Woman-Blindness
Publius Ovidius Naso (Ovid): (born March 20 43 BCE; died in exile
at sometime in 17 CE) banned on Jan 8;
bio and most of his poems here; complete “Metamorphoses” here
Jan Nepomuk Neruda (born July 9 1834; died
August 22 1891): giving Ricardo Basoalto a pseudonym on Feb 8 – bio here
Francis Russell (Frank) O'Hara (born March 27 1926; died July 25 1966): mentioned
on Jan 31; his website here; the "New York
School" of poets and painters here
Wilfred Edward Salter Owen: (born March 18 1893; joined the
doomed of all ages on Nov 4):
mentioned on Aug 3 and Sept 8; quoted on Dec
1 – bio here; poems here; his papers at the
British Library here; and see my piece on
“Dulce Et Decorum Est” in Private Collection, here
Gregory Pardlo: a cipher
and a ledger entry on June 4 – his website here
Pádraig Anraí Mac
Piarais (Patrick Henry Pearse) (born November 10 1879; executed at Kilmainham Gaol in Dublin on May 3
1916): lawyer and poet; fighting to liberate his homeland on April 24; bio here; website here; poems here [and on the Éireland page]
Fernando António Nogueira Pessoa (born June 13 1888;
an entire page dedicated to him on his deathdate, Nov
30): all of his heteronyms on Feb 8;
mentioned on Feb 28 and July 3; quoted on Dec
1; and an obscure insinuation on Sept
30 – plus two pieces in Private Collection: “Disquietudes” here, Gottfried Benn here
Vicente
Guedes, as well
as Bernardo Soares, on Nov 30, are
both, and definitely, pseudonyms for Fernando
Pessoa; Richard
Zenith, Iain
Watson, Alfred
MacAdam
and Margaret
Jull Costa, on the same page, sound disquietingly like
pseudonyms, so I am assuming that they too are heteronyms of Pessoa, and I am therefore listing them all together here
Ludwig Pfeuffer, the poet
Yehuda Amichai (born May 3
1924; died September 22 2000): I have a poem in his honour in “Welcome To My
World”, purchasable here; Aug 3 – bio here; poems here
Sylvia Plath (born Oct 27
1932; discovered that the gas-jet was also poetry on Feb 11 1963); with Ted
Hughes on Aug 17; peeled
onions on Sept 20; with Anne Sexton and Robert
Lowell on Nov 9 and 17; my
piece in Private Collection here, including links to
her reading some of the poems; bio and more poems here
Joseph Mary Plunkett in English, Seosamh Máire Pluincéid in Éirish (born
November 21 1887; executed May 4 1916): a poet and journalist, and a
leader of the 1916 Easter Rising on April 24,
he was one of the seven signatories to the Proclamation of the Irish Republic (for which see the Éireland page; poems here
Alexander Pope (born May 21 1688; died May 30 1744): mentioned re Richard Savage on Jan 16; translated
Homer’s “Iliad” on Bloomsday (June
16); letter from Jonathan
Swift on Nov 30,
and their partnership in founding The Scriblerus Club here – bio here; Erskine-Hill’s literary bio here; poems here (his
pub and hotel in Twickenham here); for
Lombard Street, where he grew up, go to P’s London
Ezra Weston Loomis Pound: (born October 30 1885; died November 1
1972): Bollingen Prize on Feb 19;
indicted July 26 (whence his
placement on the GER page, but
redeemed sufficiently by his poetry and translations that he is also here) –
bio and poems here; his London blue
plaque here; his website here
Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin (born May 26 1799 – Old Style Russian calendar; June 6 in the Gregorian – died January 29 1837 in the OS, or February 10): mentioned on March 4; admired by Yevtushenko on July 18 – his birthplace here, with links to other locations connected with him; his publishing house here; his London museum here; his black ancestry here; oh yes, nearly forgot, his poems, about six hundred of them, here
René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke (“Rainer” was Lou Andreas-Salomé’s suggestion) (born Dec 4 1875; died December 29 1926): mentioned on July 3 – bio here; Duino Elegies here; other poems here; his relationship with Rodin here; his relationship with Lou Andreas-Salomé here; and I simply can’t resist including this
Jean Nicolas Arthur Rimbaud (born Oct 20 1854; died November 10 1891): physically attacked on July 10; verbally attacked on Oct 8 – bio here; poems here and here; the relationship with Verlaine here; the hotel named for him here, and the coffee house that didn’t get named for him here
Alfred Ilq: Swiss adviser to King Menelik II of
Ethiopia [Africa page], telling off Rimbaud
in no uncertain terms, on Oct 8
Angelo Maria Ripellino (born December 4 1923; died April 21 1978): creating a Golem on March 11 – interview with his son here; poems in English are difficult to
find, but try ...; his “Magic Prague” here; poems here, his translation of Pasternak
discussed here
Anthony Widvill Rivers (but remembered as Anthony Woodville, and
sometimes Wydeville) (born probably in 1442; died June 25 1483): giving Caxton his first book on Nov 18 – bio here and here [but was he himself
a poet, or merely a patron? answer here]
Theodore Huebner Roethke (born May 25
1908; died August 1 1963): bio here; poems here
Isaac Rosenberg (born
November 25 1890; died April 3 1918 on the Somme): proving he was not a louse
on Aug 3; otherwise try here and here for bio
and poems
Christina Georgina Rossetti (born Dec 5 1830; died December 29 1894): bio here, poems here and here – and need to follow up the family
connection: she was a Polidori on her
mother’s side; "Pollydolly" her uncle (for which see under Byron)
her brother Gabriel Charles Dante Rossetti can be
found birthdaying on May 12, and among the illustrators
Dorothy Rothschild (Parker) (born August 22 1893; died June 7
1967): what better birthday present? on Aug 22;
can a Jewish girl even be a wasp? I think I need to rewrite that - on Oct 26; bio at her website, here; best quotes here; serious poems if
you really must (and if you can even find any) here (the eulogy to George Sand
definitely isn’t one, but worth reading anyway, here)
Félix Rubén García Sarmiento (Rubén Dario) (born
January 18 1867; died February 6 1916): compared with Cervantes on Jan 18 – bio here; poems in Spanish here, in English here
Siegfried Loraine Sassoon: (born Sept 8
1886; died September 1 1967); his “Alcuin”
poem on May 19; mentioned on Feb 28 - bio here and here; poems here and here
Richard Savage: (birthdate unknown but circa 1697; died
August 1 1743): biographied by Samuel Johnson
on Jan 16 – biographied by Britannica here; poems here and here
General Richard Savage, 4th Earl Rivers (born circa 1654; died August 18 1712): the man the poet Richard Savage claimed as his father, on Jan 16, with the Countess of Macclesfield (Mrs Brett later on) supposedly doing the mothering. The
evidence for this parenting is, however, still awaiting verification
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich
Schlegel (born March 10 1772; died January 12 1829):
translating Shakespeare into Hoch Deutsch on Feb 8 - bio here;
and like so many of the best of the poetikos, multifarious in his
activities: so: the art writer here;
“The Philosophy of History” here; the Romantic Poet here; quotes here
Robert William Service (born January 16 1874, and in Lancashire, not
Canada; died September 11 1958): with Jack London in the Yukon on Aug 16; "Sam McGee"
and "Dan McGrew" referenced on April 18; mentioned on Feb 9 and Feb 28 – bio and poems here
Percy Bysshe Shelley: (born August 4 1792; drowned July 8
1822 – click here - but see Aug 13 as well): hymned Adonais on Feb 23; also mentioned on Jan 1, Feb 1,
Feb 21, March
11 and Aug 10 – poems (no Keats epitaph?), portrait and bio here; and see my novel “A
Small Drop Of Ink”; and hear my arrangement of his “Call For Freedom” from “The
Masque of Anarchy” here
Philip Sidney (born Nov 30 1554;
died October 17 1586): bio here; works here; and the family connection to both the Percys and the Dudleys here (oh, are they all the same link!)
John Allyn Smith, Jr (John Allyn
McAlpin Berryman): (born
October 25 1914; died Jan 7 1972): bio here; poems here
Florence Margaret (“Stevie”)
Smith: peeled onions on her
birthdate, Sept 20 1902; died March 7 1971): mentioned on Nov 17 – bio and poems here
Hannah Szenes: the tale of her capture and execution by
the Nazis is on Nov 7; she wasn’t the
greatest poet ever, but “Eli Eli” is still sung regularly in Israeli schools, indeed
in Jewish schools worldwide, practically a second national anthem [The Poets and responses
to bullying]
Alfred (Lord) Tennyson: (born Aug 6 1809;
died October 6 1892): “Charge of the Light Brigade” on April 18, Oct 4
and Oct 25 – bio here; other poems here
François-Anatole Thibault
(Anatole France): (born April 16
1844; died October 12 1924): quoted on July 12 – poems and other
writings here; bio and 1921 Nobel
Prize here
Dylan Marlais Thomas: (born Oct 27
1914; died November 9 1953): mentioned June 24
- everything you could want to know here - not to be confused with the other D. M Thomas, Donald
Michael Thomas (born January 25 1935; died March 26 2023; and likewise a very
gifted poet but even more so a novelist: click here)
George Turberville (born circa 1540; died circa 1597): best known for doing a Petrarch (publishing a book of poems addressed to the woman
he loved), but he is on Jan 30 for
including some of Bandello’s stories
in his own “Tragical Tales”, which are prose
Ambroise Paul Toussaint Jules Valéry (born Oct 30 1871; died July 20 1945) – bio and some
poems here; all the books here
Paul-Marie Verlaine (born March 30 1844; died January 8 1896):
one of the reasons for Pablo Neruda’s
pseudonym on Feb 8; tried to kill Rimbaud on July 10 – bio here; in Mons jail here; poems here
Charles Morice: writing about Verlaine under the
pseudonym Karl Mohr on Feb 8
Derek Alton Walcott (born Jan 23
1930; died March 17 2017): bio here; poems here and here
Walter (Walt) Whitman: (born May 31 1819; died March 26 1892): “Leaves of Grass” published in
its earliest version on July 4, but
banned on Jan 8; also Dec 6 for the publication of his other bans
(the means of unmarrying a writer from his readers) – the Walt Whitman Archive here; his Library of Congress archive here
interesting man was Peter
Doyle - see March 15
Helen Maria Williams: born June 17;
mentioned on Oct 28
William
William Wordsworth: (born April 7 1770; passed into immortality on April 23 1850): “Tintern Abbey” on July 13; mentioned on April 27 – the only biography of him worth reading here; other poems and bio and more here
William Butler Yeats (born June 13 1865; died January 28 1939): Easter Rebellion on April 24; quoted Sept 1; photographed by Ottoline Morrell on Nov 22; mentioned on June 24; Auden’s eulogy here
Sergei Aleksandrovich Yesenin (born October 3 1895; died December 28 1925): start here: added to Yevtushenko’s library on July 18, to Victor Serge’s on Aug 20; married to Isadora Duncan, though it isn’t mentioned on either of their blog-appearances - bio and lots of poems in translation here
You can find David Prashker at:
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