Ogden Nash was a poet that used nonsensical and humorous verse to draw people into reading his poems. Then, he would slip in insightful poems that speak a lot about life. His light verse even earned him a place on a postage stamp. His poems contain uneven lines that all rhyme, and he even made up spellings to words to achieve the best effect.
Frederick Ogden Nash was born August 19, 1902, in New York. His family thought that education was very important, and this was the basis for his love of languages and writing. At the age of seven, he got an eye infection, so he had to stay in a darkened room for almost a year. During this time, his mother schooled him, and this helped him develop his incredible memory. By the tender age of 10, he was already writing the humorous poetry that he became famous for.
He went to Harvard briefly, but his family didn’t have much money, so he had to quit and get a job. His first job was as a high school teacher, then as a bond salesman, then as an advertising copy-writer, then as an editor, and finally as a writer for the “New Yorker.” He published many of his poems in books, but he also made sure to do lecturing, even though he hated it. The lecturing ensured that he would make enough money to support his family. He died May 19, 1971, in Baltimore, Maryland.
His tombstone says that he was a master of light verse. Archibald MacLeish contests that, saying that his poetry is so much more than that. Sure, some of his poems are lig...
Walt Whitman’s early life and childhood had an impact on his works of poetry later in his life. Walt Whitman was born on May 31, 1819, in West Hills, New York. His parents were Walter and Louisa Van Velsor Whitman. At the age of four, Whitman and his family moved to Brooklyn, living in a series of different houses due to bad investments by his parents. Whitman later viewed his childhood as sad and unhappy, because his family frequently moved and they were in a poor financial situation.
When he was fifteen years old, his mother died from appendicitis. From fifteen years of age to his college years, he lived in an all-white neighborhood. From 1914-1917, he shifted from many colleges and academic courses of study as well as he changed his cultural identity growing up. He studied physical education, agriculture, and literature at a total of six colleges and universities from Wisconsin to New York. Although he never completed a degree, his educational pursuits laid the foundation for his writing career.
Although he spent 10 years in college, he got married and had three children. He helped his mother stand up to her family and make them realize once and for all that she is deaf and cannot be made to fit in the hearing world. He wrote a 175 page paper that made him realize that he could write a book. He also finally found a job as a counselor at PSD, working there once again after a few years at Gaulladet.
When he returned from the army he got enrolled at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio. He received M.A. degree and began to work on his Ph.D. at the same time he started teaching at University of Minnesota and later at MacAlester College. He received Ph.D. from University of Washington for study on Charles Dickens and he did public readings. He taught at Hunter College in New York City from 1966 to 1980. He also worked as translator. He completed some of his poems as he was teaching in the college he states that he didn’t feel any conflict between the duties of teaching and the labors of writing books which are non-academic.
Looking at James Hall's writings we learn that he is comedic with a very underlying theme of change. His poems all seem to circle around a very familiar thing that we are all familiar with. Change whether it is new or old or just realizing we have changed, is all the same. In his works "Maybe Dats Your Pwoblem Too," "White Trash," and "Preposterous" there are different kinds of change that are discussed.
In literature, Peter Pan is used to symbolize a boy that does not want to grow up. Peter Pan is very similar to J.D. Salinger’s main character Holden in his 1951 novel, The Catcher in the Rye. [Sentence deleted]. Salinger’s story The Catcher in the Rye is about a sarcastic teenage boy, named Holden, who internally struggles with himself. During this period in his life, Holden finds himself attending multiple different boarding schools in the New York area. After flunking out of Pencey Prep, he grounds himself in New York City living off cheap hotels and supportive friends. Symbols in the form of objects, people, and places help the reader obtain insights into Holden’s reasons for not growing up. In The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger alludes to “The Catcher in the Rye” poem, his sister Phoebe, and the Natural History Museum to symbolize Holden’s wish to not grow up.
Walt Whitman was born in 1819 to a family with seven siblings. He started work at a printing service when he was just a boy in order to help out his family financially. During his tenure in the printing industry, Whitman began to read and write. He fell in love with the art of writing and would eventually go into editing as a career. Whitman created a new style of poetry called free verse, and at the time American culture would reject this
Robert Lee Frost was born on March 26, 1874 in San Francisco. When his father died, he moved to Massachusetts with his family to be closer to his grandparents. He loved to stay active through sports and activities such as trapping animals and climbing trees. He married his co- valedictorian, Elinor Miriam White, in 1895. He dropped out of both Dartmouth and Harvard in his lifetime. Robert and Elinor settled on a farm in Massachusetts, which his grandfather bought him. It was one of the many farms on which he would live in throughout his lifetime. Frost spent the next 9 years writing poetry while poultry farming. When poultry farming did not work out, he went back to teaching English. He moved to England in 1912 and became friends with many people who were also in the writing business. After moving back to America in 1915, Frost bought a farm in New Hampshire and began reading his poems aloud at public gatherings. Out of the blue, he suddenly had many family disasters. Frost’s youngest daughter and wife died and his son committed suicide, soon after which another daughter institutionalized. Darker poetry, su...
While working, he contracted malaria, allowing him to begin writing. He started by writing columns for the New Orleans Picayune. After marriage he worked as a newspaper reporter, followed by keeping books for a cotton firm. He did not go to school to receive his education. He spent his time before work reading and writing, teaching himself French and learning much of the old New Orleans records.
“Not I, nor anyone else can travel that road for you. You must travel it by yourself. It is not far. It is within reach. Perhaps you have been on it since you were born, and did not know. Perhaps it is everywhere” (Whitman 33) is Walt Whitman’s first and one of his most popular works, Leaves of Grass. It was and still is very inspirational to many people including Ralph Waldo and many others after him. He had a major influence on modern free verse. Following a hard childhood in and around New York, Walter Whitman was well known and received in his time for Leaves of Grass which did not use the universal theme, which he became known for in the eighteenth century as well as his way of seeing the world in a view that very few could comprehend in his time.
He then spent 11 months at the University of Virginia but due to his gambling problem, his guardian refused to let him continue his schooling. In 1827 he published his first collection of poems. His poems didn’t do so
At the young age of thirteen, he experienced several tragedies that would affect his life forever and would greatly impact his music later in life. Within a year, his father, his uncle, and his minister all died. He lost every important male influence in his life. After graduating from high school in High Point, he moved to Philadelphia in 1943, where he lived in a small one-room apartment and worked as a laborer in a s...
William Blake is remembered by his poetry, engravements, printmaking, and paintings. He was born in Soho, London, Great Britain on November 28, 1757. William was the third of seven siblings, which two of them died from infancy. As a kid he didn’t attend school, instead he was homeschooled by his mother. His mother thought him to read and write. As a little boy he was always different. Most kids of his age were going to school, hanging out with friends, or just simply playing. While William was getting visions of unusual things. At the age of four he had a vision of god and when he was nine he had another vision of angles on trees.
“To some extent insanity is a form of conformity; people are always selling the idea that people who have mental illness are suffering. But it’s really not so simple…I think mental illness or madness can be an escape also” (qtd. in “John Forbes Nash”). To many “normal” people, the terms “insanity” or “madness” portray a negative connotation-- the unfortunate ones “suffer” from mental illness. However, brilliant mathematician and Nobel laureate John Forbes Nash, who has paranoid schizophrenia, cherishes his unique condition as a means of retreat from the brutalities of reality (“John Forbes Nash”). Since ancient times, people have observed the link between madness and creative genius. Indeed, research has proven that the two conditions of psychology display similar characteristics, both behaviourally and genetically. Unfortunately, this subject remains quite ambiguous, and science may never fully grasp the concept (Griffith 626; Ludwig 5; Simonton; Neihart). Although it lacks in hard facts, many compelling theories arise from this field of study: a little madness may bolster creative genius, but too much madness can overpower the creativity and kill the genius. The right amount of insanity can produce positive results.
Robert Frost was born on March 26, 1874 in San Francisco. He died on January 29, 1963 in Boston. His parents were William Prescott Frost Jr. and Isabelle Moodie. He went to Dartmouth College and later Harvard College but never receive a degree. His first poem he published was called, “My Butterfly.” “He was the co-valedictorian from Lawrence High School.” (Sarah Johnson) In the end, he married the co-valedictorian from high school. He got many awards and honors along the way. “He got the Pulitzer Prize in 1923, 1931, 1937 and 1943.” (Beacham Walton) He served as a Poetry Consultant to the Library of Congress. He also cited one of his poems at the inauguration before President John F. Kennedy. He accomplished many things in his life time. One of his more famous poems is called, “The Road Not Taken.”