Lives of the Poets

As Bob has shown on a regular basis in the Daily Poetry Break, it is often interresting to learn more about the poet whose words you are reading. Together with an idea of when and where in their life they produced a particular poem, it gives you a better context for understanding and appreciating their works.

The opposite also holds true. Many a well known public figure whose lives you may think you know, produced poems that give a better appreciation of their viewpoint. They become more human and less of an textbook icon to us.

These summaries are intentionally brief, but packed with information nonetheless. If someone, such as a Lord Byron, a Matthew Arnold, a Helen Hunt Jackson, or a Laurence Hope strikes an interest, delve deeper and see what you can find out about them elsewhere.

Perhaps you may sift through the Britannica, find one of Untermeyer's Anthologies, or seek out the 'Lives of the Poets' whose title I snitched for this section.

Thanks to Nelson Miller for initiating this biographical index, which will eventually encompass as many of the poets we have collected as possible, and perhaps some we can not yet collect online. There is a companion page, Faces of the Poets, to give you a more corporeal view. I always like to read the biography first, then look at the portrait and see whether it surprises me, or not.

                --Steve

A
1. Lascelles Abercrombie
2. Franklin Pierce Adams
3. Henry Brooks Adams
4. John Quincy Adams
5. Sarah Flower Adams
6. Joseph Addison
7. AE (George William Russel)
8. Conrad Potter Aiken
9. Mark Akenside
10. Zoe Akins
11. Louisa May Alcott
12. Edward Godfree "Richard" Aldington
13. Thomas Bailey Aldrich
14. Cecil Frances Alexander
15. William Allingham
16. Washington Allston
17. 'Alqamah ibn 'Abadah
18. Anacreon
19. Sir Edwin Arnold
20. Matthew Arnold
21. Kenneth Herbert Ashley
22. Alfred Austin
23. Sir Robert Aytoun
24. William Edmondstoune Aytoun

    C

25. Francis Cornford
26. Charles Cotton

    G

27. William Davis Gallagher
28. Richard Garnett

    H

29. Thomas Wentworth Higginson

    O

30. Fitz-James O'Brien

    R

31. Lizette Woodworth Reese