Volunteers bring you 16 recordings of the haunting Ballad of Another Ophelia by D. H. Lawrence. This was the Fortnightly Poetry project for March 24, 2013.
Volunteers bring you 21 recordings of Symphony in Yellow by Oscar Wilde. This was the Weekly Poetry project for March 18, 2012.
Oscar Wilde, an Irish author who lived for much of his life in London, is most famous for his witty, satirical plays. He also worked for some time as a journalist.
Much of his poetry was written early in his career, with a notable exception being The Ballad of Reading Gaol. This poem, Symphony in Yellow, is probably one of his earlier works; in it he describes London in a flattering manner something he was disinclined to do after his trial and imprisonment.
Giacomo Leopardi is a great name in Italy among philosophers and poets, but is quite unknown in this country, and Mr. Townsend has the honor of introducing him, in the most captivating way, to his countrymen. In Germany and France he has excited attention. Translations have been made of his works; essays have been written on his ideas. But in England his name is all but unheard of. Six or seven years ago Mr. Charles Edwards published a translation of the essays and dialogues, but no version of the poems has appeared, so far as I know. Leopardi was substantially a poet,—that is to say, he had imagination, sentiment, passion, an intense love of beauty, a powerful impulse towards things ideal. (O. B. Frothingham, from the Preface of The Poems of Giacomo Leopardi)
Readers bring you 13 versions of The Poet Who Sleeps by Walter Savage Landor. This was the weekly poetry project for December 1, 2013.
William Cowper was an English poet and hymnodist. One of the most popular poets of his time, Cowper changed the direction of 18th century nature poetry by writing of everyday life and scenes of the English countryside. In many ways, he was one of the forerunners of Romantic poetry.His religious sentiment and association with John Newton (who wrote the hymn "Amazing Grace") led to much of the poetry for which he is best remembered. His poem "Light Shining out of Darkness" gave English the phrase: "God moves in a mysterious way/His wonders to perform." Wikipedia
readers bring you 26 recordings of On The High Price Of Fish by William Cowper. This was the weekly poem for June 6, 2021.
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Here we have a silly poem this week by William Cowper, an English poet, and hymnodist. One of the most popular poets of his time, Cowper changed the direction of 18th-century nature poetry by writing of everyday life and scenes of the English countryside.
Volunteers bring you 18 recordings of Inscription For A Stone by William Cowper.
This was the Weekly Poetry project for May 12, 2019.
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INSCRIPTION FOR A STONEErected at the sowing of a grove of oaks at Chillington, the Seat of T. Giffard, Esq, 1790 (Poem Title)
Volunteers bring you 14 recordings of Epitaph on a Hare by William Cowper.
This was the Fortnightly Poetry project for March 12, 2022.
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This Fortnightly Poem features an ode to a pet rabbit.
Volunteers bring you 15 recordings of A Snow Storm by T.F. Young.
This was the Weekly Poetry project for January 6, 2019.
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Pedantic critics may find fault with my modest productions, and perhaps justly, in regard to grammatical construction, and mechanical arrangement, but I shall be satisfied, if the public discern a vein of true poetry glittering here and there through what I have just written. The public are the final judges of compositions of this sort, and not the writer himself, or his personal friends. It is they, therefore, who must decide whether these humble attempts of my 'prentice hand, shall be numbered with writings that have been forgotten, or whether their author shall be encouraged to strike his lyre in a higher key, to accompany his Muse, while she tries to sing in a loftier strain.
THE AUTHOR.
PORT ALBERT, March, 1887.
Thomas Hardy, OM was an English novelist and poet. A Victorian realist in the tradition of George Eliot, he was influenced both in his novels and in his poetry by Romanticism, especially William Wordsworth. Charles Dickens was another important influence. Like Dickens, he was highly critical of much in Victorian society, though Hardy focused more on a declining rural society.
Volunteers bring you 16 recordings of Ode on Solitude by Alexander Pope.
This was the Weekly Poetry project for September 12, 2021.
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Pope was a poet and satirist of the Augustan period and one of its greatest artistic exponents. Considered the foremost English poet of the early 18th century, after Shakespeare, he is the second-most quoted author in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, some of his verses having entered common parlance (e.g. "damning with faint praise"). (Wikipedia)
Volunteers bring you 15 recordings of Petals by Amy Lowell. This was the Weekly Poetry project for November 27, 2011.
Amy Lawrence Lowell (February 9, 1874 – May 12, 1925) was an American poet of the imagist school from Brookline, Massachusetts who posthumously won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1926. Lowell was born into Brookline's prominent Lowell family, sister to astronomer Percival Lowell and Harvard president Abbott Lawrence Lowell.
She never attended college because her family did not consider that proper for a woman, but she compensated with avid reading and near-obsessive book collecting. She lived as a socialite and travelled widely, turning to poetry in 1902 after being inspired by a performance of Eleonora Duse in Europe. In the post-World War II years, Lowell, like other women writers, was largely forgotten, but with the renaissance of the women's movement in the 1970s, women's studies brought her back to light. According to Heywood Broun, however, Lowell personally argued against feminism. Her poem, “Petals” is published in her collection A Dome of Many-Colored Glass (1912).
There were scarcely any events in the life of Thomas Hood. One condition there was of too potent determining importance—life-long ill health; and one circumstance of moment—a commercial failure, and consequent expatriation. Beyond this, little presents itself for record in the outward facts of this upright and beneficial career, bright with genius and coruscating with wit, dark with the lengthening and deepening shadow of death. (from the Biographical Introduction (by William Michael Rossetti) to The Poetrical Works of Thomas Hood)
Volunteers bring you 9 recordings of Sally Simpkin's Lament; or, John Jones's Kit-Cat-Astrophe by Thomas Hood. This was the Fortnightly Poetry project for January 4, 2015.
Thomas Hood was a British humorist and poet, born in London.
"There were scarcely any events in the life of Thomas Hood. One condition there was of too potent determining importance—life-long ill health; and one circumstance of moment—a commercial failure, and consequent expatriation. Beyond this, little presents itself for record in the outward facts of this upright and beneficial career, bright with genius and coruscating with wit, dark with the lengthening and deepening shadow of death." - from the Biographical Introduction by William Michael Rossetti of The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood
There were scarcely any events in the life of Thomas Hood. One condition there was of too potent determining importance—life-long ill health; and one circumstance of moment—a commercial failure, and consequent expatriation. Beyond this, little presents itself for record in the outward facts of this upright and beneficial career, bright with genius and coruscating with wit, dark with the lengthening and deepening shadow of death.
Volunteers bring you 13 recordings of The Wee Man - A Romance by Thomas Hood.
This was the Fortnightly Poetry project for March 7, 2021.
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Thomas Hood was an English poet, author and humorist, best known for poems such as "The Bridge of Sighs" and "The Song of the Shirt". Hood wrote regularly for The London Magazine, Athenaeum, and Punch. He later published a magazine largely consisting of his own works.
In 1904, Canadian poet Bliss Carman published Sappho: One Hundred Lyrics, which was not just a translation of the fragments but an imaginative reconstruction of the lost poems. While of little to no scholarly value, Carman's translations brought Sappho's work to the attention of a wide readership. Our Fortnightly Poem is the Epilogue to this collection by Bliss Carman. (Wikipedia)
Volunteers bring you 21 recordings of Hallowe'en by John Kendrick Bangs.
This was the Weekly Poetry project for October 24, 2021.
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This Halloween Poem by J K Bangs appeared in Harper's Weekly, Nov. 5, 1910.
Volunteers bring you 12 recordings of Casey at the Bat by Ernst Lawrence Thayer. This was the Fortnightly Poetry project for December 16, 2012.
Ernst Thayer was an American writer and poet who wrote "Casey at the Bat", the "single most famous baseball poem ever written" according to the Baseball Almanac.
This Weekly Poem is an excerpt from Song of the Broad-axe (4th Stanza) by Walt Whitman, who was an American poet, essayist and journalist. A humanist, he was a part of the transition between transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among the most influential poets in the American canon, often called the father of free verse.
Volunteers bring you 8 recordings of The Passing of the Year by by Robert W. Service. This was the Fortnightly Poetry project for December 18, 2011.
Robert William Service was a poet and writer who has often been called "the Bard of the Yukon". This poem taken from Rhymes of a Rolling Stone, published in 1912.
"Windhover" is another name for the common kestrel (Falco tinnunculus). The name refers to the bird's ability to hover in midair while hunting prey. In the poem, the narrator admires the bird as it hovers in the air, suggesting that it controls the wind as a man may control a horse. The bird then suddenly swoops downwards and "rebuffed the big wind". The bird can be viewed as a metaphor for Christ or of divine epiphany.
Hopkins called "The Windhover" "the best thing [he] ever wrote". It commonly appears in anthologies and has lent itself to many interpretations.
In the Author's Preface to Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins, he describes this poem as Curtal-Sonnet "that is they are constructed in proportions resembling those of the sonnet proper, namely 6 + 4 instead of 8 + 6, with however a halfline tailpiece (so that the equation is rather 12/8 + 9/2 = 21/2 + 10 1/2)."
Gerard Manley Hopkins SJ was an English poet, Catholic and Jesuit priest, whose posthumous fame established him among the leading Victorian poets. His manipulation of prosody (particularly his invention of sprung rhythm and use of imagery) established him as an innovative writer of verse. Two of his major themes were nature and religion. ( Wikipedia)
Volunteers bring you 18 recordings of Binsey Poplars by Gerard Manley Hopkins SJ.
This was the Weekly Poetry project for July 21, 2019.
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Gerard Manley Hopkins SJ was an English poet and Jesuit priest, whose posthumous fame established him among the leading Victorian poets. His manipulation of prosody (particularly his concept of sprung rhythm and use of imagery) established him as an innovative writer of verse. Two of his major themes were nature and religion.
This poem is part of the "Ecclesiastical Sonnets," writen by Wordsworth between 1821 - 22.
Kipling was one of the most popular writers in the United Kingdom, in both prose and verse, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In 1907, at the age of 42, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, making him the first English-language writer to receive the prize and its youngest recipient to date. He was also sounded out for the British Poet Laureateship and on several occasions for a knighthood, both of which he declined.
In 1918 she won a Pulitzer Prize for her 1917 poetry collection Love Songs. It was "made possible by a special grant from The Poetry Society"; however, the sponsoring organization now lists it as the earliest Pulitzer Prize for Poetry (inaugurated 1922).
Volunteers bring you 8 recordings of Bettesworth's Exultation Upon hearing that his name would be transmitted to posterity in Dr. Swift's works, by William Dunkin by Jonathan Swift.
This was the Weekly Poetry project for September 15, 2019.
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Jonathan Swift, satirist, essayist, political pamphleteer (first for the Whigs, then for the Tories), poet and cleric who became Dean of St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin. He is regarded by the Encyclopædia Britannica as the foremost prose satirist in the English language and is less well known for his poetry.
Volunteers bring you 22 recordings of Faults by Sara Teasdale. This was the Weekly Poetry project for March 7th, 2010.
Jonathan Swift was an Anglo-Irish satirist, essayist, political pamphleteer (first for the Whigs, then for the Tories), poet and cleric who became Dean of St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin.
Swift is remembered for works such as Gulliver's Travels, A Modest Proposal, and others. He is regarded by the Encyclopædia Britannica as the foremost prose satirist in the English language, and is less well known for his poetry.
Sara Teasdale was an American lyric poet. Teasdale's first poem was published in Reedy's Mirror, a local newspaper in St. Louis, in 1907. Her first collection of poems, Sonnets to Duse and Other Poems, was published that same year.Teasdale's second collection, Helen of Troy and Other Poems, was published in 1911. It was well received by critics, who praised its lyrical mastery and romantic subject matter. (Wikipedia )
James McIntyre, called The Cheese Poet, was a Canadian poet.
McIntyre was born in Forres, Scotland and came to Canada in 1841 at the age of 14, finally moving to Ingersoll, Ontario, then a town of 5,000 on the banks of the Thames in Oxford County, the heart of Canadian dairy country at the time. He opened a furniture factory on the river as well as a store which sold furniture, along with such items as pianos and coffins.
He was well loved in the community, from which he often received aid in hard times, due in part to his poesy and oratorical skills—he was called on to speak at every kind of social gathering in Ingersoll. The region seems to have inspired him, and it was in celebration of the proud history of Canada, the natural beauty and industry of the region, and especially (as noted above) its cheese, that the majority of his oeuvre was written.
Kendall was born in a settler's hut by Yackungarrah Creek near Ulladulla, New South Wales, Australia. He was registered as Thomas Henry Kendall, but never appears to have used his first name. His three volumes of verse were all published under the name of "Henry Kendall". ( Wikipedia )
Volunteers bring you 14 recordings of Cheese Curd for Bait by James McIntyre. This was the Weekly Poetry project for September 23, 2012.
James McIntyre, born in Scotland, came to Canada in 1841. He finally settled in Ingersoll (a town in central Ontario on the banks of the Thames River), the then-heart of Canadian dairy country.
He was well loved in the community, from which he often received aid in hard times, due in part to his poesy and oratorical skills — he was called on to speak at every kind of social gathering in Ingersoll. The region seems to have inspired him, and it was in celebration of the proud history of Canada, the natural beauty and industry of the region, and especially its cheese, that the majority of his oeuvre was written.
Volunteers bring you 13 recordings of Lines Addressed to an Old Bachelor by James McIntyre. This was the Weekly Poetry project for January 27, 2013.
Another poem from Canada's cheese poet, James McIntyre.
Volunteers bring you 18 recordings of From the Forests by Henry Kendall.
This was the Fortnightly Poetry project for March 29, 2020.
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Henry Kendall was the first Australian poet to draw his inspiration from the life, scenery and traditions of the country. from the Biographical Note - The Poems of Henry Kendall
Volunteers bring you 18 recordings of After Many Years by Henry Kendall.
This was the Fortnightly Poetry project for April 19, 2020.
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Henry Kendall was the first Australian poet to draw his inspiration from the life, scenery and traditions of the country., from the Biographical Note by Bertram Stevens (The Poems of Henry Kendall)
Henry Kendall was the first Australian poet to draw his inspiration from the life, scenery and traditions of the country. In the beginnings of Australian poetry the names of two other men stand with his—Adam Lindsay Gordon, of English parentage and education, and Charles Harpur, born in Australia a generation earlier than Kendall. Harpur's work, though lacking vitality, shows fitful gleams of poetic fire suggestive of greater achievement had the circumstances of his life been more favourable. Kendall, whose lot was scarcely more fortunate, is a true singer; his songs remain, and are likely long to remain, attractive to poetry lovers.
Volunteers bring you 14 recordings of Any Woman To A Soldier by Grace Ellery Channing.This was the Weekly Poetry project for November 4, 2018.
Grace Ellery Channing was a writer and poet who published often in The Land of Sunshine. Channing began her career as a writer by editing her grandfather's memoirs, Dr. Channing's Notebook (1887). She became an associate editor of The Land of Sunshine (later Outwest), and in her tenure as a writer and poet contributor to the publication, advocated for an increased reliance on Mediterranean practices for Los Angelenos. This included embracing the sun instead of avoiding it, eating lighter food, and taking in wine and afternoon naps.
Volunteers bring you 16 recordings of Kotri, by the River by Laurence Hope.
This was the Fortnightly Poetry project for August 9, 2020.
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Editorial note: Laurence Hope was the pen name of Adela Florence Cory Nicolson. Born in 1865, she was educated in England. At age 16 she joined her father in India, where she spent most of her adult life. In 1889 she married Col. Malcolm H. Nicolson, a man twice her age. She committed suicide two months after his death in 1904.
Adela Florence Nicolson (née Cory) was an English poet who wrote under the pseudonym Laurence Hope. Her father was employed in the British army at Lahore and she left for India in 1881 to join her father.
In 1901, she published Garden of Kama, which was published a year later in America under the title India's Love Lyrics. She attempted to pass these off as translations of various poets, but this claim soon fell under suspicion. Her poems often used imagery and symbols from the poets of the North-West Frontier of India and the Sufi poets of Persia. She was among the most popular romantic poets of the Victorian and Edwardian eras. Her poems are typically about unrequited love and loss and often, the death that followed such an unhappy state of affairs. Many of them have an air of autobiography or confession.
Adela Florence Nicolson was an English poet who wrote under the pseudonym Laurence Hope.She was born in England and joined her father in 1881, who was employed in the British Army at Lahore (The traditional capital of Punjab for a millennium, Lahore was the cultural centre of the northern Indian subcontinent which extends from the eastern banks of the Indus River to New Delhi.)Her father was editor of the Lahore arm of The Civil and Military Gazette, and it was he who in all probability gave Rudyard Kipling (a contemporary of his daughter) his first employment as a journalist. Her sisters Annie Sophie Cory and Isabel Cory also pursued writing careers: Annie wrote popular, racy novels under the pseudonym "Victoria Cross," while Isabel assisted and then succeeded their father as editor of the Sind Gazette. ( Wikipedia)
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was a German writer and statesman. His body of work includes epic and lyric poetry written in a variety of metres and styles; prose and verse dramas; memoirs; an autobiography; literary and aesthetic criticism; treatises on botany, anatomy, and colour; and four novels. In addition, numerous literary and scientific fragments, more than 10,000 letters, and nearly 3,000 drawings by him are extant.
Father John Banister Tabb was an American poet, Roman Catholic priest, and professor of English. Father Tabb (as he was commonly known) was widely published in popular and prestigious magazines of the day, including Harper's Monthly, The Atlantic Monthly, and The Cosmopolitan. His books of poetry include Poems (1894), Lyrics (1897), Later Lyrics (1902), and, posthumously, Later Poems (1910). He also wrote one prose work, Bone Rules (1897), an English grammar; only one of his sermons has survived, a sermon on the Assumption (August 15, 1894).
Volunteers offer you 12 different recordings of A Drinking Song from The Green Helmet and Other Poems (1912) by William Butler Yeats. This was the weekly poetry project for the week of April 11th, 2010.
This popular piece was voted Britain’s favourite poem in a BBC opinion poll in 1995.
"What is life?" we ask. "Just one darned thing after another," the cynic replies. Yes, a multiplicity of forces and interests, and each of them, even the disagreeable, may be of real help to us. It's good for a dog, says a shrewd philosopher, to be pestered with fleas; it keeps him from thinking too much about being a dog.