Edward Rowland Sill: An Early American Poet Edward Rowland Sill was born in Windsor, Connecticut, in 1841. His mother's side of the family was religious, while his father's family was scientific. Deeply rooted in New England heritage, the Sill family could trace their ancestry back to Jonathan Edwards. Sill's background in religion and science led him to a life-long struggle between faith and doubt. He has been described as a "poet of antithesis, torn between intellectual conviction and spiritual
Lawrence Ferlinghetti is an American poet best known as a leader of the beat movement of the 1950's. The beats were writers who condemned commercialism and middle-class American values. Ferlinghetti writes in colloquial free verse. His poetry describes the need to release literature and life from conformity and timidity. He believes drugs, Zen Buddhism, and emotional and physical love can open the soul to truth and beauty. Lawrence Ferlinghetti was born in Yonkers, New York, in 1919. After spending
American Poet: Phillis Wheatley Phillis Wheatley was an African-born slave in the last quarter of the eighteenth-century in New England. She was born in West Africa and brought to America on the slave ship Phillis. She was, however, much more than chattel-she was a poet. Phillis was the first African American to have a book published. In a time when women were not expected to be able to read or write, and when teaching an African American to be literate was frowned upon, Phillis Wheatley became
The Works of Poet Carl Sandburg and His Effect on American Poetry The beloved poet, Carl Sandburg, changed the course of American poetry. He was a poet, novelist, journalist, and songwriter, yet the influence of his works have not always been acknowledged. Carl Sandburg's evocations of American urban and rural life, compassion for people, and his love of nature, through his works have made an enormous contribution to the American literary scene. Carl Sandburg was born on January 6, 1878
Penn Warren: Distinguished American Writer and Poet Robert Penn Warren, born in Guthrie, Kentucky in 1905, was one of the twentieth century's most eminent American writers. He was a distinguished novelist and poet, literary critic, essayist, short story writer, and coeditor of numerous textbooks. He was also a founding editor of The Southern Review, a journal of literary criticism and political thought. The primary influences on Robert Warren's career as a poet were probably his Kentucky
Walt Whitman was arguable one of the most influential poets during the Civil War era. Though never directly involved in war, Whitman was able to talk about the war in a more insightful way than many poets at the time could. Whitman was most active in writing during the times before and after the war, choosing to dedicate himself to helping wounded soldiers during the war instead. Walt Whitman’s poetry reflects the progression of his philosophy of America: his initial view of America was uplifting
fact, Brooks’ used her obstacles to her advantage, and sprinted towards the finish line. Gwendolyn faced financial struggles, and limited opportunities due to her racial background. However, Brooks’ achieved many accomplishments and used her African American heritage to become one of America’s best poetic authors. Gwendolyn Brooks has said that her poetry was written for blacks and about blacks, yet any person of any race can relate to the universal themes portrayed in her pieces. Gwendolyn Brooks’ lived
Maya Angelou is an African-American female who was born in 1928. She had a disastrous childhood, yet battled through it and wound up to a great degree persuasive, prestigious, and effective. She spent her childhood being hurled forward and backward in the middle of California and Alabama with her brother (Angelou 18). Amid her center years she needed to figure out how to grow up quick and bring home the bacon all alone. American poet Maya Angelou pulled through a troublesome life to compose wonderful
in his life. Robert serves as an advocate for the disabled, an on going effort to better the rights of all Americans with disabilities. He is an International Poet-Writer with well over 900 publications published World wide. In 2000 Robert was nominated as one of the best Poets of the 20th Cen. Just most recently, he was nominated for the Pushcart Prize, an award giving to Outstanding Poets & Writers. Robert is also a Guinness & Ripley's world record holder for the longest non stop wheelie in a wheelchair
Langston Hughes was an influential leader toward many African American men, woman, and children in the 1920’s and 1930’s. Langston Hughes may not be as well-known for the civil rights movement as Martin Luther King Jr. was, but Hughes was capable of placing an everlasting impact on black culture during this period of civil rights unrest in the United States. Martin Luther King Jr. was an advocate for allowing the rights of African American people to have the same privileges and opportunities as the
British and American Poets British and American poets are considered to be some of the most exceptional poets in history. There was a British and American movement that started a little over 200 years ago with William Wordsworth. Once the movement started with Wordsworth, it was mostly British writers, however, the past hundred years or so was filled with equally awesome American Poets. However, there was an already world-renowned poet 300 years before that, by the name of William Shakespeare.
On February 19, 1942, Franklin Delano Roosevelt issued the infamous Executive Order 9066, which resulted in the internment of 110,000 Japanese Aliens and Japanese Americans in concentration camps because of the so-called "military threat," they posed. In 1945, poet Lawson Fusao Inada wrote the following poem, titled "Concentration Constellation," which refers to the various relocation camps that were used to contain these people: In this earthly configuration, We have, not points of light, but
the kitchen. The poet describes how the poet feels, as his father whirls him around. Roethke wrote, “breath and death,” “dizzy and easy.” (“Papa” 1-4) The reader imagines the father whirling the boy around, and the boy holding on tight to his father. The poet wrote, “We romped until the pans/slid from the kitchen shelf.” (“Papa” 5-6) and “My mother’s countenance/Could not unfrown itself.” (“Papa” 7-8) The mother appears to dislike the whirling around in the kitchen, but the poet uses the word “romp
Man, William Blake appears to be doing the same thing. He begins to use his gun for survival, but it is different. The gun actually stands for something in the film. Blake becomes a poet by the use of his gun, which mirrors the legendary American poet whose name he shares. The guns show how disgusting it is in American society to kill and Jarmusch doesn’t glamorize it in the way that Hollywood blockbusters about violence do. Further exploring the similarities on the surface, a true western always
looking at the titles of Walt Whitman's vast collection of poetry in Leaves of Grass one would be able to surmise that the great American poet wrote about many subjects -- expressing his ideas and thoughts about everything from religion to Abraham Lincoln. Quite the opposite is true, Walt Whitman wrote only about a single subject which was so powerful in the mind of the poet that it consumed him to the point that whatever he wrote echoed of that subject. The beliefs and tenets of transcendentalism were
Walt Whitman's Influence on Germany Walt Whitman (1819-1892) is considered to be one of the greatest American poets of the nineteenth century. While Edgar Allan Poe may have been more widely read, Whitman had more international writers actively respond to him and his poetry than any other American poet. A century after his death, writers around the world are still in dialogue with him, pondering the questions he posed, arguing with him and elaborating on his insights. People have been attracted
Rita Dove is one of America’s finest poets. “The Stroke” is a poem from one of her four books of poetry called, Thomas and Beulah, which was awarded the Pulitzer Prize. Rita. “The Stroke” demonstrates how our insights vary over time. Personification and imagery are two ways the poet uses to give examples to talk about an event in one’s life. In contrast to Dove, Emily Dickinson was also a very successful American Poet. She wrote more than eighteen hundred poems and about a dozen of them were published
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was born on February 27, 1807 in Portland, Maine to the mother Zilpah Wadsworth and the father Stephen Longfellow who was a politician and a lawyer. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was an influential American poet, translator (He was the first American poet to translate Dante Alighieri's epic poem The Divine Comedy) and a professor at the Harvard University. One of Longfellow's most pretentious work is Evangeline: A tale of Acadie, an epic poem which follows the Acadian girl
Paul Laurence Dunbar Outline Thesis: The major accomplishments of Paul Laurence Dunbar's life during 1872 to 1938 label him as being an American poet, short story writer, and novelist. I. Introduction II. American poet A. Literary English B. Dialect poet 1. "Oak and Ivy" 2. "Majors and Minors" 3. "Lyrics of Lowly Life" 4. "Lyrics of the Hearthside" 5. "Sympathy" III. Short story writer A. Folks from Dixie (1898) B. The Strength of Gideon and Other Stories (1900) C. The Heart
Robert Lee Frost The mark of a great poet is his ability to engage the reader so that they analyse their own lives. Robert Lee Frost (1874 – 1963) – an influential American poet often associated with rural New England – is brilliant at this and uses poetry as a platform for the expression of his own general ideology. Frost’s belief that human society was often chaotic and stressful and that the meaning of life is elusive, has been promoted in his poetry. Frost looked to nature, whose undying