By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
‘In Spite of Everything’ (or, as the poet himself has it, without capitals, ‘in spite of everything’) is a short lyric poem by the American modernist poet E. E. Cummings (or, as he would himself have it, e. e. cummings). Cummings (1894-1962) was an innovative and distinctive poet famed for his lack of capital letters in his poetry and his idiosyncratic approach to punctuation.
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
‘The Crazy Woman’ is a poem by the American poet Gwendolyn Brooks (1917-2000). It was published in her 1960 collection The Bean Eaters. In the poem, a self-described ‘crazy woman’ announces her determination to sing as she pleases, however controversial her song might be or however unacceptable society may find her song to be.
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931) was a Lebanese-American poet who is best-known for one book of poetry: The Prophet. This 1923 book is one of the bestselling books of all time: indeed, Gibran is usually named as one of the three biggest-selling poets of all time, behind Shakespeare and Lao-Tzu. Born … Read more
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
‘In the Waiting Room’ is one of the best-known poems by the American poet Elizabeth Bishop (1911-79). Written in 1971 and published in the collection Geography III in 1976, the poem describes a visit to the dentist which the young Bishop made as a six-year-old girl.
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
French poetry is among the most romantic, the most innovative, and the most influential of all poetry. French poets – possibly influenced by the example of the American trailblazer, Walt Whitman – pioneered vers libre or ‘free verse’ in the late nineteenth century, while some of the most avant-garde poetry written at the beginning of the twentieth century was written in French.