Wise Poets of the Past

Rudyard Kipling: The Empire’s Anglo-Indian Writer Indian born, British citizen Rudyard Kipling was an imperialist leaning writer which makes him controversial in our own post colonial times, but he was a wildly popular writer in his own time, For he wrote such endearing stories as “The Jungle Book” about a boy raised by wolves in … Read more

We are in the season of Easter when we turn our minds to the rebirth of Spring and the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. And both of these compelling themes can be found commonly is Western literature and the Bible. For instance Walt Whitman wrote extensively about the physical rebirth of all things … Read more

Mahatma Gandhi: The Wise-man from the East and His Writings Mohandas Karamchald Gandhi. born on October 2, 1869 in Guiarat, India was not only an anti-colonial activist and the liberator of his country from Great Britain, but he also left behind some important writings that have greatly influenced civil rights leaders in modern times. “The … Read more

Ireland: Land of Mossy Mists and Ancient Myth Similar to Greece, Ireland is also a land of ancient myth and folklore. But the difference between myth and folklore is that folklore has its roots in the popular music, dance and ballads of the culture, but myth involves the stories about the divine and are considered … Read more

Narrative Poetry Tells The Story Aristotle divided poetry into three main categories: narrative, dramatic, such as we see in Shakespeare’s plays in which character development is the the thing rather than plot, and lyric poetry. And, of course, these three basic forms can overlap as in a lyrical poem that is also a narrative. A … Read more

Francis Pharcellus Church: Little Virginia’s Secret Journalism Santa A child’s letter to the editor questioning the existence of Santa Claus challenged the imagination of a crusty old, cynical newspaper writer by the name of Francis Pharcellus Church to answer the child in the affirmative. And although he was too ashamed of himself to admit to … Read more

Kahlil Gibran: America’s Mystical Immigrant Kahlil Gibran, born on January 6, 1883 in a Lebanese village in the exotic Ottoman Empire, is most famous for his best selling book, :”The Prophet. It was a popular book full of philosophical prose poetry and mystical illustrations of nude people which has been translated into 100 languages and … Read more

Oscar Wilde: Flamboyance Personified Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde, born on October 16 in 1854, was not just famous for his long name and writings which were shocking in his Victorian times, he was also known for his fussy attention to his personal appearance and his propensity for the finer things in life, In short, … Read more

Modern Prose Poetry Bends the Rules There are definite difference between poetry and prose. Poetry is written in verse form and relies on picturesque speech, metaphor, imagery, can bend the rules of grammar, and has line breaks in verse form that define it as poetry. Prose on the other hand is always written with regular … Read more

Agatha Christie the Dame of Mystery: Halloween Horror Month Part III Ah, Agatha Christie, Her wildly popular murder mysteries have kept readers gleefully occupied on cold winter nights for decades. They kept me gleefully occupied for hours on end for decades with her eccentric, sometimes comical, fatally flawed characters and her logical, slightly ironic plot … Read more

Today’s prevailing wisdom in literary circles is that language is fluid and the rules of grammar can be bent, as long as the skilled author intuitively knows it works. And it was most likely the influence of the innovative poet e e cummings that led to this kind of thinking because he broke the rules … Read more

The Iconic poem ‘The New Colossus” was one sonnet all American children had to read in school, at least those of us in the Baby Boom generation. And the words immortalized on a plaque hanging inside the the base of the Statue of Liberty are as follows: Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame, … Read more

Percy Bysshe Shelley was born on August 4, 1792 in Sussex, England to a well heeled noble family and enjoyed a pleasant rural childhood. And although his father Timothy Shelley was a conservative member of the Whig party in Parliament, Percy himself grew up to be a politically radical writer and poet and a firebrand … Read more

Tucked deep in the annals of classic American literature you will find a recorded sermon entitled “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” that literally brought the Thirteen Colonies to it’s knees. This iconic sermon touched off a highly emotional and intense spiritual movement called the Great Awakening that is still legendary in America’s … Read more

HIE Dhlomo: The Literary Luminary of South African Apartheid South Africa is a land rich in history and literature which can boast of up to eleven official languages, including English. And although the Black Africaan people were suppressed and their literature not published during the colonial period, they were still prolific in the oral tradition … Read more

Ralph Waldo Emerson: America’s Most Influential Essayist Emerson may have been an ordained minister and the son of an ordained minister, but he was anything but a Christian. He was the, in fact, the man credited with being the primary leader of the American transcendentalist movement and the father of it. Actually though, transcendentalism was … Read more

Francis Scott Key: On The Fence in Freedom’s Defense Some poets are famous for only one poem, and Francis Scott Key, a Fredrick, Maryland lawyer is the amateur poet who was famous for writing the immortal words of America’s national anthem; The Star Spangled Banner. He had boarded an English warship during the War of … Read more

Mary Oliver and Her Wise Connection to the Natural World Mary Oliver was such a natural born poet that she started writing by the young age of 14, eventually winning the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize in 2007. And the New York Times said of her “that she was by far this country’s … Read more

Elizabeth Barrett Browning: Sweet Lady Poet of the Love Sonnet Elizabeth Browning was the proverbial child prodigy who began writing at the early age of 11, and her lifetime body of work boasted of the largest collections of childhood poetry in existence. Then after being accepted as an adult into some of Britain’s most prestigious … Read more

Sonnets Are the ‘Little Songs’ of Wise Poets Form. Form. Form. Form is what the sonnet is all about. All types of sonnets are written by the same basic rules of being a total of fourteen lines written according to a strict rhyme scheme and meter of certain common patterns employed at discretion of the … Read more