Present Poetry

Born Elizabeth Roberta Winters on July 20, 1911, in New York City, she was always a bright child who skipped grades and graduated with her bachelor's degree in 1931 at 20. She then graduated with her postgraduate degree in 1940 and began a rich life devoted to writing and teaching.

She met Paul Alexander Bartlett in 1941, a fellow writer and artist. They were married in 1943 and had one child, a son, born in 1945.

Overall, she published 16 collections of poetry, a thousand individually published poems, and a host of essays, short stories, and translations.

In 1968, she invented the twelve-tone form of poetry. She also founded the Literary Olympics around 1982.

Elizabeth died on August 12, 1994. To learn more, check out her Wikipedia page.

We are reading from Behold This Dreamer, a book of poetry published in 1959.

Philip Berry is a doctor from London. His poetry and short fiction have appeared in Black Bough, Poetry Birmingham, The Healing Muse, Deracine, and Dream Noir.

He also has several books, a medical ethics blog, and more- which you can find through his website at www.philberrycreative.wordpress.com. You can also connect with him on social media through the tag @philaberry.

Dorothy Parker was born Dorothy Rothschild on August 22, 1893, in New Jersey.

She sold her first poem in 1914 to Vanity Fair, which launched a 20+ year career as a poet, critic, screenwriter, and humorist. She wrote over 300 poems, over 15 movies (including one nominated for an Academy Award), a few short story collections, and more.

She was also a Civil Rights advocate and gave her estate to MLKJR upon her death.

To learn more about this incredible poet, click the link above or visit her Wikipedia page.

We are reading from Enough Rope, her first poetry collection published in 1926.

Miss Sarah S. Mower has been misfortune's child. Disease laid its relentless hand upon her in early childhood. It deprived her of a common school education and the world's sweet intercourse. Such has been its nature, that, except on one occasion, she has not been able to leave home for more than six years.

"THE SNOW-DROP" would never have appeared had not life's wintry hour given it birth! It was written to beguile tedious time. Winds, as they played through groves that surround her aged father's retired and humble dwelling, sweet songsters, as they caroled from spray to spray, and the ripple of the Androscoggin, as it glided past, to her ear, were nature's sweet minstrels, that cheered her heart in solitude and inspired her, too, to attempt the artless strains of nature.

This little work, at the suggestion of her friends, is presented and dedicated to the benevolent public, humbly hoping and trusting that it may give pastime to the leisure hour, impress more fully moral and religious sentiment, and afford some little return for the thought she has bestowed upon it.

Taken from the preface of The Snow-Drop: A Holiday Gift

Prince Views was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, and raised in the slums of writer's block. He states that his poetry is "basically a purging of intense emotions and, at times, written introspection."

James Augustine Joyce was born in Dublin on February 2, 1882, and was the oldest of ten surviving children of John Joyce and Mary Jane Murray.

At nine years old, James wrote his first poem, "Et Tu, Healy," in response to his father's anger and betrayal after the death of Charles Stewart Parnell.

In 1898, he enrolled at University College to study English, French, and Italian. While there, he became acquainted with the scholasticism of Thomas Aquinas, which had a strong influence on the rest of his life.

Joyce didn't find true fame until 1914 with the release of Dubliners. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man was published in 1916, and Ulysses in 1922. Finnegans Wake, a stream-of-consciousness novel, came out in 1939 and was the last work published while he lived.

James Joyce passed on January 13, 1941, in Zurich, days away from his 59th birthday.

However, his works still hold sway over modern authors and artists because Joyce's fascination with the details of everyday life opened new possibilities for expression, and they are used across the art and literary world to this day.

We are reading from Chamber Music, his first collection of poetry published in 1907.

John Frederick Freeman was born on January 29, 1880 in London. When he was 13, he got a job as an office boy in an insurance firm and went on to have a successful career before quitting to write poetry full-time.

He met Walter De La Mare in 1907, and the two poets became fast friends.

Freeman won the Hawthornden Prize in 1920 for his poetry collection, and he ended up writing sixteen bodies of work consisting of poetry collections, letters, and essays between 1911 and 1929.

Freeman passed on September 23, 1929.

We are reading from Poems New and Old, a collection published in 1920.

René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke was born on December 4, 1875, in Prague.

In 1886, he was enrolled in a military academy, where he attended until an illness forced him out in 1891. He then enrolled in a trade school but got expelled in 1892.

After getting expelled, he took his writing seriously and published Life and Songs, his first poetry collection, in 1894.

In 1896, Rilke moved to Munich, where he met and fell in love with Lou Andreas-Salome. He changed his name from Rene to Rainer at her bidding, and they continued a relationship until 1900. However, she remained a close friend and confidant of Rainer's until his passing.

In 1900, Rainer met sculptor Clara Westhoff, and they eventually married and had a daughter. By then, he had some acclaim for his writings and was known as one of Germany's most intense lyrical poets.

That inspired Rainer to begin one of his most ambitious projects, called the Duino Elegies. He began writing it while living as a guest in the Duino Castle in 1912, but depression, the war, and other roadblocks kept him from finishing it until 1922.

However, once he published it, it quickly gained a reputation for being his most important work.

Rainer died on December 29, 1926, of leukemia. Before he died, Rainer had chosen a poem as his epitaph, and it's now inscribed on his gravestone.

It reads:

Rose, o pure contradiction, desire

to be no one's sleep beneath so many

lids.

(please forgive any mispronunciations. I did my best!)

William Bliss Carman was born on April 15, 1861, in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada.

While at school, Carman discovered a love of classical literature through the poetry of Dante Rossetti and Algernon Swinburne.

It inspired him to write, and he published his first poem in the University's monthly paper in 1879.

Overall, William Carman published 13 books of poetry and several books of prose and drama.

His health began declining between 1908 and 1920, and he decided to return to Canada to start the first of a very successful line of reading tours. In 1921, Carman was awarded the title of Canada's Poet Laureate.

He sadly passed away on June 8, 1929, from a brain hemorrhage. He was cremated and eventually returned to his hometown of Fredericton for burial.

Twenty-five years later, the town planted a scarlet maple tree on his grave to honor a stanza in his 1892 poem "The Grave Tree."

It read:

Let me have a scarlet maple

For the grave-tree at my head,

With the quiet sun behind it,

In the years when I am dead.

We are reading from Behind the Arras, a poetry collection published in 1895.

John Mullen was attached to the art world for 11 years while he worked to supply an artist with ideas (and got paid a pittance for it). However, that job allowed him the space to steep himself in art (and literature, to a point). Mullen has a real love for artists and feels that they contribute to society in more ways than is appreciated.

He also believes that the imagination (taking from Blakean thought) is the real force for good in the human psyche. In his mind, imagination is the key.

His love of writing poetry stretches back many years, and he tries to learn as he goes. He does try to distance himself from other poets for fear that he'll end up trying to imitate them. Instead, he falls in love with certain poems that catch his attention.

Especially Blake. In Mullen's eyes, Blake's artwork is more profound than his poetry, but the English author's words affected Mullen as well.

We are reading five of Mullen's poems that reflect his love of words, imagination, and appreciation for the art world. If you'd like to learn more about this author and his works, you can connect with him on Twitter.