Thursday Thirteen #14
April is National Poetry Month, so to celebrate I compiled a list of poets that I’m fond of and went in search of facts about them. I actually ended up with more than thirteen facts, but I didn’t think that you all would mind. As a bonus, you get to discover some of the poets I enjoy. (It turns out that Auguste Rodin was a great deal more influential than I ever knew. He knew two of the poets on this list.)
Thirteen Poets/Thirteen+ Facts
1. Shel Silverstein (American cartoonist/poet, 1932-1999) – Apart from his famous books of poetry for children, Mr. Silverstein also wrote the song “A Boy Named Sue,” made famous by Johnny Cash. (Read some poetry)
2. Maya Angelou (American writer, 1928- ) – Maya Angelou was born “Marguerite Johnson” on 4 April 1928. (Read some poetry)
3. Khalil Gibran (Lebanese poet, 1883-1931) – At one point, Gibran studied under the sculptor Auguste Rodin at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris. (Read some poetry)
4. John Donne (English poet, 1572-1631) – Donne was born and raised a Roman Catholic, but eventually converted to Church of England. Later, King James pressured him into becoming an Anglican Priest. He and his wife had twelve children (she died bringing the twelfth into the world.) (Read some poetry)
5. Rainer Maria Rilke (German poet, 1875-1926) – Rilke worked as Auguste Rodin’s secretary from 1905-1906. His birth name was Rene Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke. (Read some poetry)
6. Dylan Thomas (Welsh poet, 1914-1953) – Thomas served as an anti-aircraft gunner during World War II. He was only 39 when he died. (Read some poetry)
7. Emily Dickinson (American poet, 1830-1886) – Dickinson’s poems were not gathered and published without edits until 1955. Only seven of her poems were published during her lifetime, and all were edited by others before publishing. (Read some poetry)
8. Arthur Rimbaud (French poet, 1854-1891) – Rimbaud “fell silent” (stopped writing poetry) at the age of nineteen. It is said that he chose to live life rather than write about it. (Read some poetry)
9. Billy Collins (American poet, 1941- ) – Mr. Collins was the poet laureate of the U.S. from 2001-2003 and the driving force behind Poetry 180. He once appeared on the radio show A Prairie Home Companion and seemed to be having a lot of fun. (Read some poetry)
10. Robert Frost (American poet, 1874-1963) – Frost won the Pulitzer prize for poetry four times. He outlived his wife and most of his children. (Read some poetry)
11. Anne Sexton (American poet, 1928-1974) – Sexton worked as a model at one point. She began writing poetry at the suggestion of her psychiatrist, and was encouraged by him to write more when she turned out to be quite good at it. (Read some poetry)
12. William Shakespeare (English playwright, 1564-1616) – At eighteen, Shakespeare married a woman eight years older than him (Anne Hathaway) who gave birth to her first child six months later. There is some indication that the marriage was a bit…hasty. (Read some poetry)
13. Sylvia Plath (American poet, 1932-1963) – Plath suffered from what was apparently bipolar disorder, and ended up taking her own life at age 30. (Read some poetry)
Sources:
The Biography Resource Center (Database)
Poets.org from the Academy of American Poets.
I so enjoyed your TT! I had NO idea that Shel Silverstein wrote “A Boy Named Sue”…but it figures! I loved learning more about the poets I enjoy–which was all on your list! Thanks for providing the extra links, too! BTW other favorites of mine are Carl Sandburg, Walt Whitman, and Stephen Crane just to name a few
i love a lot of those too! especially shel silverstein, i have loved him since i was little and now i’m reading his books to my kids. my favorite poem:
i thought that i had wavy hair
instead
i found that i had straight hair
and a very wavy head!
hahahahah
happy tt! and great facts too!
Loved this post. I’m an Emily Dickinson fan, and I always have at at least one of her poems running on a sidebar on my site. Now I have the one about the snake, “zero at the bone”. Come visit!
What a great list of poets, I love poetry and you shared many of my favorite authors on your list.
I had fun visiting your TT.
Mine is at The Cafe.
Hope you’ll drop by.
Great list! I am ashamed to admit that I didn’t appreciate poetry while in school, but now I certainly do! Angelou, Plath, Thomas, Frost, Dickinson….wonderful!
Happy TT!!
Poetry is one piece of literature that I really don’t know much about. Happy TT.
Irishcoda, thanks for stopping by! One of the reasons I love doing T13s is the new things I learn. I had no idea that Silverstein had written that song either.
christieo, I love that poem, too! I’ve always liked “One sister for sale.”
kay, Dickinson was amazingly prolific and ahead of her time, wasn’t she?
Penelope Anne, thanks for stopping by! I love poetry. I wrote some terribly angsty stuff in High School, though.
YellowRose, welcome to the Poetry side of the Force. đŸ˜‰ Most folks in school are introduced to poetry as discussed in one of Billy Collins’ poems. No wonder it can take a while to find the joy in them again.
pussreboots, you should give Billy Collins a try. His stuff is quite engaging.
I didn’t know that about Rimbaud! I always thought he Died Tragically Young (well, and he did) but that that was why he stopped writing. Huh; I wouldn’t feel like I was living if I wasn’t writing!
Ahh Shakepeare =)
danica, yep. Rimbaud made me very interested in the concept of Falling Silent. At least he made it to his thirties.
Starlight, yes indeed. I adore his sonnets.
*snort*
That awesome list and not a single Roadie Poet on it!
Seriously… nice choices! I’m familiar with almost all of them — but those facts are cool. Twelve kids? Choosing to live rather than write? Amazing, the way people are.
Susan, and Roadie Poet lives *and* writes. đŸ˜€ The way poetry reflects the poet is quite interesting.
Shakespeare – the personality of the millennium.
Cool list. Another cool fact about John Donne. Evidently he’d done something to displease Queen Elizabeth (okay he married one of her Ladies in Waiting) and she had them both imprisoned in the Tower of London…separately. So he wrote a short poem: John Donne/ Anne Donne/ Undone. đŸ™‚
Nicholas, quite so.
Ann, I thought he’s secretly married the 16 year old niece of his employer…
The poetry of history, or the history of poetry. Equally entertaining either way!
Good list.
Here are “5 more poets (my favorites, in no particular order), 1 representative poem, no facts”.
Paul Laurence Dunbar – Sympathy
John Clare – I am
Elizabeth Barrett Browning – How do I love thee?
John Keats – Ode on a Grecian urn
Ella Wheeler Wilcox – Solitude
fullbodytransplant, or the history of poets…;)
Dan, you know, the poem chosen could count as a fact. đŸ˜‰
Thanks. Both of my favorite poets, Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath, are one your list! đŸ™‚