American poets

AMERICAN POETS

Creative Writing around the world Biographies by Romanian, Greek, Korean, French , Moroccan and Spanish students.

School -year 2018/2019

Biography written by: Roberto Verdejo Sources : https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fb/Edgar_Allan_Poe_portrait_B.jpg https://www.notablebiographies.com https://www.thefamouspeople.com

“Believe only half of what you see and nothing that you hear”

EDGAR ALLAN POE

He was born in Boston. He was adopted by Mr. Allan of Richmond since his mum died before the poet was three years old.

He went to England with his adoptive parents. He lived there for five years. He received a good education and went to the University of Virginia.

In 1829 he was enlisted in the Army but he failed as an officer cadet.

He started a career as an editor in several newspaper.

1809-1849

His father deserted the family and then Elizabeth Poe died of tuberculosis in Richmond Virginia.

He married his fourteen-year-old cousin, Virginia.

Poe published his poem “The Raven” to instant success, but Virginia died of tuberculosis two years after its publication.

He was found in the streets of Baltimore on October 3 and he died four days later.

POETRY Tamerlane and Other Poems Al Aaraaf Poems The Raven and Other Poems Tales of Ratiocination ANALYTICAL TALES called “TALES OF RATIOCINATION” The Gold Bug The Murders in the Rue Morgue The Purloined Letter

He died in mysterious circumstances in Baltimore at the age of forty in 1849.

“Death takes courage and then invites you to a drink”

Biography written by: Ioanna 4th Junior High School of Petroupoli

Biography Research Sources https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emily_Dickinson https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/emily-dickinson

Poet’s name:(USA)

GAME

Emily Dickinson Photo / portrait

Early Life: -She

was born on December 10, 1830, in Amherst, Massachusetts, US - She is the the middle child of Edward and Emily Norcross Dickinson. Her family was prominent but not really rich. They were among the founders of Amherst College and her father and her brother were lawyers and also involved in politics.

- Her childhood and youth were filled with schooling, reading, explorations of nature, religious activities, significant friendships and several key encounters with poetry.

End of life: - She died on May 15, 1886

- The poet’s death came after two and a half years of ill health.

-She was buried in Amherst, Massachusetts, US.

Family Life Emily Dickinson was never married.Throughout her life, she seldom left her home and visitors were few. The people with whom she did come in contact, however, had an enormous impact on her poetry. She was particularly stirred by the Reverend Charles Wadsworth, whom she first met on a trip to Philadelphia. He left for the West Coast shortly after a visit to her home in 1860, and some critics believe his departure gave rise to the heartsick flow of verse from Dickinson in the years that followed. While it is certain that he was an important figure in her life, it is not clear that their relationship was romantic—she called him “my closest earthly friend.” Other possibilities for the unrequited love that was the subject of many of Dickinson’s poems include Otis P. Lord, a Massachusetts Supreme Court judge, and Samuel Bowles, editor of the Springfield Republica.

By the 1860s, Dickinson lived in almost complete isolation from the outside world, but actively maintained many correspondences and read widely. She spent a great deal of this time with her family. Her brother, Austin, who attended law school and became an attorney, lived next door with his wife, Susan Gilbert. Dickinson’s younger sister, Lavinia, also lived at home for her entire life in similar isolation. Lavinia and Austin were not only family, but intellectual companions for Dickinson during her lifetime.

Works Dickinson’s poetry was heavily influenced by the Metaphysical poets of seventeenth-century England, as well as her reading of the Book of Revelation and her upbringing in a Puritan New England town, which encouraged a Calvinist, orthodox, and conservative approach to Christianity.

While Dickinson was extremely prolific as a poet and regularly enclosed poems in letters to friends, she was not publicly recognized during her lifetime. The first volume of her work was published posthumously in 1890 (she died in Amherst in 1886).

Upon her death, Dickinson’s family discovered forty handbound volumes of nearly 1,800 poems, or “fascicles” as they are sometimes called. Dickinson assembled these booklets by folding and sewing five or six sheets of stationery paper and copying what seem to be final versions of poems. The handwritten poems show a variety of dash-like marks of various sizes and directions (some are even vertical). The original order of the poems was not restored until 1981. Since then, many critics have argued that there is a thematic unity in these small collections, rather than their order being simply chronological or convenient. The Manuscript Books of Emily Dickinson (Belknap Press, 1981) is the only volume that keeps the order intact.

Because I could not stop for Death (479) Because I could not stop for Death – He kindly stopped for me – The Carriage held but just Ourselves – And Immortality.

We slowly drove – He knew no haste And I had put away My labor and my leisure too, For His Civility – We passed the School, where Children strove At Recess – in the Ring – We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain – We passed the Setting Sun – Or rather – He passed us – The Dews drew quivering and chill – For only Gossamer, my Gown – My Tippet – only Tulle – We paused before a House that seemed A Swelling of the Ground – The Roof was scarcely visible – The Cornice – in the Ground – Since then – ‘tis Centuries – and yet Feels shorter than the Day I first surmised the Horses’ Heads Were toward Eternity –

Biography research Resources: www.wikipedia.org / www.poetryfoundation.org

/ www.biogtaphy.com

Robert Frost Early life

Family life

_Robert Frost was born March 26, 1874 in San Francisco, California, to journalist William Prescott Frost, Jr., and Isabelle Moodie. His mother was a Scottish immigrant, and his father descended from Nicholas Frost of Tiverton, Devon, England, who had sailed to New Hampshire in 1634 on the Wolfrana. _attended Lawrence High School _ attended Dartmouth College for several months. _Frost attended Harvard University from 1897 to 1899, but he left voluntarily due to illness.

_ Robert Frost married Elinor Miriam White. They had had six children: son Elliot (1896–1900) Lesley Frost Ballantine (1899–1983) son Carol (1902–1940) Irma (1903–1967) Marjorie (1905–1934) Elinor Bettina (died 1907). _was an English teacher at New Hampshire's Pinkerton Academy, then at the New Hampshire Normal School. _ worked the farm he had purchased for nine years while writing early in the mornings. _Was a teacher at the Bread Loaf School of English of Middlebury College. _accepted a fellowship teaching post at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, where he resided until 1927 when he returned to teach at Amherst.

Facts _ He won four Pulitzer Prizes for (the book New Hampshire1924,, Collected Poems in 1931,A Further Range in 1937,and A Witness Tree in 1943) _ He never graduated from college, Frost received over 40 honorary degrees _ He was awarded a United States Congressional Gold Medal In 1960 "In recognition of his poetry, which has enriched the culture of the United States and the philosophy of the world. _ the Robert Frost Middle School in Fairfax, Virginia, the Robert L. Frost School in Lawrence, Massachusetts, and the main library of Amherst College were named after him. _ He was named poet laureate of Vermont in 1961. _ He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature 31 times.

End of life Frost died in Boston on January 29, 1963 of complications from prostate surgery. He was buried at the Old Bennington Cemetery in Bennington, Vermont.

Works His first poem, "My Butterfly. An Elegy" His first book of poetry, A Boy's Will, was published in 1913.

His most famous poem is the road not taken

Prepared by fatima

Gwendolyn Elizabeth Brooks (June 7, 1917 – December 3, 2000) was an American poet, author, and teacher. Her work often dealt with the personal celebrations and struggles of ordinary people in her community. She won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry on May 1, 1950, for Annie Allen, making her the first African American to receive the Pulitzer.

Throughout her prolific writing career, Brooks received many more honors. She was appointed Poet Laureate of Illinois in 1968, a position she held until her death, and what is now the Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress for the 1985–86 term. In 1976, she became the first African-American woman inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Brooks was born in Topeka, Kansas and at six-weeks-old was taken to Chicago, where she lived the rest of her life.

Her parents, especially her mother encouraged her poetry writing. She began submitting poems to various publications, as a teenager. After graduating high school during the Great Depression, she took a two-year junior college program, worked as a typist, married, and had children. Continuing to write and submit her work, she finally found substantial outlets for her poetry.

To be in Love To be in love / Is to touch with a lighter hand.

In yourself you stretch, you are well.

You look at things / Through his eyes.

A cardinal is red. /A sky is blue.

Suddenly you know he knows too.

He is not there but /You know you are tasting together The winter, or a light spring weather.

His hand to take your hand is overmuch.

Too much to bear.

You cannot look in his eyes /Because your pulse must not say What must not be said.

When he /Shuts a doorIs not there_ Your arms are water. /And you are free With a ghastly freedom.

You are the beautiful half /Of a golden hurt.

You remember and covet his mouth To touch, to whisper on.

Oh when to declare /Is certain Death!

Oh when to apprize /Is to mesmerize, To see fall down, the Column of Gold, /Into the commonest ash.

Biography written by Neagu Diana Colegiul National Alexandru Ioan Cuza, Galati, Romania

Biography Research of Thomas Stearns Eliot Sources :https://ro.wikipedia.org/wiki/T.S._Eliot

Early Life: First, he had to overcome physical limitations as a child. Struggling from a congenital double inguinal hernia, he could not participate in many physical activities and thus was prevented from socializing with his peers. As he was often isolated, his love for literature developed. Once he learned to read, the young boy immediately became obsessed with books and was absorbed in tales depicting savages.

Family Life: His parents were both 44 years old when he was born. Eliot was born at a property owned by his grandfather, William Greenleaf Eliot. His four sisters were between 11 and 19 years older; his brother was eight years older.

Known to family and friends as Tom, he was the namesake of his maternal grandfather, Thomas Stearns.

Works After working as a philosophy assistant at Harvard from 1909 to 1910, Eliot moved to Paris where, from 1910 to 1911, he studied philosophy at the Sorbonne. A connection through Aiken resulted in an arranged meeting and on 22 September 1914, Eliot paid a visit to Pound's flat. Pound instantly deemed Eliot "worth watching" and was crucial to Eliot's beginning career as a poet, as he is credited with promoting Eliot through social events and literary gatherings.

He was instead spending long periods of time in London, in the company of Ezra Pound and "some of the modern artists whom the war has so far spared... It was Pound who helped most, introducing him everywhere."[22] In the end, Eliot did not settle at Merton and left after a year. In 1915 he taught English at Birkbeck, University of London.

3 Interesting Facts:1.Throughout his life, Eliot supported himself by working as a teacher, banker, and editor, writing poetry only in his spare time. 2. He may have been the first person to write the word "bulls**t".

3. He held some troubling beliefs about religion.

End of life:Eliot died of emphysema at his home in Kensington in London, on 4 January 1965, and was cremated at Golders Green Crematorium.

The Hollow Men by T.S. Eliot Mistah Kurtz - he dead.

A penny for the Old Guy

I We are the hollow men We are the stuffed men Leaning together Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!

Our dried voices, when We whisper together Are quiet and meaningless As wind in dry grass or rats' feet over broken glass In our dry cellar Shape without form, shade without colour, Paralysed force, gesture without motion; Those who have crossed With direct eyes, to death's other kingdom Remember us - if at all - not as lost Violent souls, but only As the hollow men The stuffed men.

II Eyes I dare not meet in dreams In death's dream kingdom These do not appear: There, the eyes are Sunlight on a broken column There, is a tree swinging And voices are In the wind's singing More distant and more solemn Than a fading star.

Let me be no nearer In death's dream kingdom Let me also wear Such deliberate disguises Rat's coat, crowskin, crossed staves In a field Behaving as the wind behaves No nearer -

Not that final meeting In the twilight kingdom

III This is the dead land This is cactus land Here the stone images Are raised, here they receive The supplication of a dead man's hand Under the twinkle of a fading star.

Is it like this In death's other kingdom Waking alone

At the hour when we are Trembling with tenderness Lips that would kiss Form prayers to broken stone.

IV The eyes are not here There are no eyes here In this valley of dying stars In this hollow valley This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms In this last of meeting places We grope together And avoid speech Gathered on this beach of this tumid river Sightless, unless The eyes reappear As the perpetual star Multifoliate rose

Of death's twilight kingdom The hope only Of empty men.

V Here we go round the prickly pear Prickly pear prickly pear Here we go round the prickly pear At five o'clock in the morning.

Between the idea And the reality Between the motion And the act Falls the Shadow

For Thine is the Kingdom Between the conception And the creation Between the emotion And the response Falls the Shadow Life is very long Between the desire And the spasm Between the potency And the existence Between the essence And the descent Falls the Shadow For Thine is the Kingdom For Thine is Life is For Thine is the This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends Not with a bang but with a whimper.

Biography written by Albert

Biography Research Sources : https://www.britannica.com/biography/Walt-Whitman https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walt_Whitman http://mentalfloss.com/article/535696/facts-about-walt-whitman

Photo / portrait

Walt Whitman Early Life: He was born on May 31, 1819 in Long Island in New York.

His mother was Louisa Van Velsor and his father was Walter Whitman.

He moved to Brooklyn in 1823 where he went to school for six years, then he was an apprentice in a printing workshop.

Works

Family Life He didn’t marry.

He didn’t have children.

He lived in Brooklyn.

He worked as a journalist, a teacher, a government clerk.

3 Interesting Facts:

His first collection of poems was Leaves of Grass.

His most famous poem was Song of Myself.

Song of Myself I celebrate myself, and sing myself, And what I assume you shall assume, For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

I loafe and invite my soul, I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.

He started working at the age of 11.

He was a missionary during the civil war.

He designed his own tomb.

End of life: He died on March 26, 1892 in Camden in New Jersey.

He died of bronchial pneumonia.

He was buried in Camden's Harleigh Cemetery.

Biography written by Valentin J

Biography Research Sources : Wikipédia

Photo / portrait

WALT WHITMAN Early Life: -Walt Whitman was born the 31 may 1819 in Long Island, in USA. -He had only 6 years of school.

Family Life

He had 8 Brothers/Sisters In lived in a big family 3 Interesting Facts:

Works He wrote poems, and books, he wrote : Leaves of Grass and O Captain ! My Captain for example.

“O Captain! My Captain! our fearful trip is done; The ship has weather'd every rack, the prize we sought is won; The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting, While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring” Extract of O Captain ! My Captain

He was Homosexual He Participated at The secession War on the part of Union, He wrote letters about it

End of life: -He died in the 26 march 1892 in Camden of a Pleurisy

March Task : biography writing Creative Writing Around The World School –Year 2018/2019