Fun facts about our poets
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| Wanda Coleman |
For example: I learned from a Dan Chiasson profile of the poet Wanda Coleman that she made innovations in her poetry when she "rummaged for new forms in everyday material, like aptitude tests, medical reports, and want ads." I like the idea that forms don't always have to be inherited from the classics, but can come from the "everyday material" that surrounds us.
I learned that Pablo Neruda was a pen name created in respect to Jan Neruda, a Czech journalist, writer, and poet. And slightly similarly to him, Pablo Neruda was also political.
ReplyDeleteMy poet is Czesław Miłosz and something that really shocked me is everything he's been through. He has gone through more then some people go through there entire lives. Not only was he alive during world war 1 but he was also there for world war 2. He had gone through so much more living in Poland that he eventually had to defect. A lot of his trauma bled through into his work and it even challenged his faith in God. It shocked and inspired me to be thankful for how relevantly easily I've had it compared him and many other people on this large planet.
ReplyDeleteMy poet is Maya Angelou, and I learned that her real name is Marguerite Annie Johnson. I also learned that she went through racial, and sexual abuse throughout her childhood. She was so shook that she became mute for many years. She also became a single mother when she was 16. It is really amazing how she could overcome these obstacles, and become one of the most famous African American women in the world.
ReplyDeleteMy poet is Ted Hughes and I learned that he married twice. His first marriage was to Sylvia Plath, a poet, but he cheated on her to be with another poet, Assia Wevill, who was married to another person. Plath committed suicide, then Wevill killed his daughter and committed suicide, and afterwards Hughes married Carol Orchard.
ReplyDeleteMy poet is Pablo Neruda and I learned that he was a former senator of Chile and in 1971, he won the Nobel Prize for literature. Also, one of his poetry books is the bestselling one in the Spanish Language.
ReplyDeleteI learned that Maya Angelou recited her poem 'On the Pulse of Morning' at Bill Clinton's inaugural ceremony. I also learned that she wrote multiple autobiographies, and one of them became a non-fiction bestseller, marking the first time an African-American woman's book was a non-fiction bestseller.
ReplyDeleteMy poet is Sylvia Plath and I learned a lot about how her poems were a cry for help. She was struggling with disorders, depression, and grief her whole life and that came through in her poem. However, she ended up committing suicide before she could get the true help she needed.
ReplyDeleteI learned that Robert Lowell was a huge advocate in the anti war campaigns that this influences many of his poems.
ReplyDeleteUsually poets names are in caps. But E.E Cummings name isn’t spelled like that. It’s e.e.cummings. No caps. That’s because there was a printer who printed his name wrong with no caps. Ana’s he melts his name like that since the incident.
ReplyDeleteMy poet is Maya Angelou, and I learned that she was the first black woman to work as a streetcar conductor in San Francisco. Also, her birth name is Marguerite Annie Johnson.
ReplyDeleteMy poet is Margaret Atwood, she was born in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada where she started writing plays at the age of six but didn’t start formal schooling til twelve.
ReplyDeleteMy poet is Joseph Brodsky, and I learned that, not only did he drop out of school at a young age and have a wide variety of jobs, including working at a morgue, he was also exiled from the Soviet Union and the only thing that kept him going was literature. He eventually moved the the US.
ReplyDeleteMy poet is Nikki Giovanni and I learned that her full name is Yolande Cornelia Giovanni.
ReplyDeleteKenneth Rexroth went to jail as a kid
ReplyDeleteSarah Kay started writing and performing poetry when she was 14 and became the youngest person competing in the National Poetry Slam in Austin, Texas
ReplyDeleteMy post is Maya Angelou, who went nuts at the age of 6 or 7 for several years. According to her, it was her love of literature that returned her voice to her.
ReplyDeleteMy poet is Gwendolyn Brooks, and I learned that she won a Pulitzer Prize for her poem “Annie Allen”
ReplyDeleteMy poet was Theodore Roethke, and I didn't know that he had bipolar disorder, and that he died young at 55 years old.
ReplyDeleteMy poet is Sherman Alexie. When he was a child he had hydrocephalus, which unfortunately left him with a massive head that he was bullied for a lot.
ReplyDeleteMy poet was Philip Larkin and I didn't know that his dream job was to become a librarian which he became after graduating collage.
ReplyDeleteMy poet is Langston Hughes, and something about him that surprised me was he traveled the world. He visited Europe, Africa, Russia and East Asia, while also traveling the United States
ReplyDeleteMy poet is Rainer Maria Rilke and I learned that he was sent to military school by his parents with the desire that he would become an officer, but he was discharged due to health issues
ReplyDeleteMy poet is Ted Hughes and i learned that his first wife was Sylvia Plath who was also a poet but then he cheated on her and she later committed suicide. Then his second wife killed their child and committed suicide too.
ReplyDeleteMy poet is W.H. Auden, and I learned that he actually went to college for engineering, but when he discovered his love for poetry, he switched to being an English major.
ReplyDeleteMy poet is Robert Frost, and I learned that he started college in both Dartmouth and Harvard but never earned a college degree at either school.
ReplyDeleteMy poet is William Carlos Williams and I learned that he started writing poems in high school and also decided to be a writer and a doctor.
ReplyDeleteMy poet, Elizabeth Bishop, won the Pulitzer Prize winner for Poetry in 1956.
ReplyDeleteMy poet is Amiri Baraka, I learned that he was in the air force for 3 years, until he was kicked out because he had "Inappropriate texts".
ReplyDeleteEamon
DeleteI learned that Langston Hughes lived in 6 different cities before he was 12, traveled to many countries, and took up close to 10 jobs early in his life. This intrigued me, as he must have struggled to get used to all the different places he was moving to.
ReplyDeleteAlice Walker lost her sight in her right eye when she was a child, which made her withdrawn. This lead her to start observing the world around her more, which inspires her poems.
ReplyDeleteThe poet I am studying is Mary Oliver, and I learned that she lived in Massachusetts (Provincetown)!
ReplyDeleteThe poet I am researching is Billy Collins, and I learned that he served two terms as the eleventh Poet Laureate of the United States!
ReplyDelete-Anya Chen
My poet is W.H. Auden, and I learned that he served in the Spanish Civil War and traveled a lot, and his experiences away from home influenced his poetry.
ReplyDeleteI am learning about the poet Billy Collins. One interesting fact I learned is that in 2001, he was named poet laureate consultant in poetry to the Library of Congress. He held this post for two years.
ReplyDeleteMy poet is Gary Soto, he won the 1976 United States Award of the International Poetry Forum with his first poetry collection titled The Elements of San Joaquin.
ReplyDeleteMy Poet is Alice Walker and I learned that her book “The Color Purple” got turned into a Broadway Musical which I thought was very interesting
ReplyDeleteMy port is Allen Ginsburg. I was surprised to find out that he was involved in a robbery, and pleaded insanity.
ReplyDeleteMy poet is Gwendolyn Brooks and I learned that she was the poetry consultant to the Library of Congress and was the first African-American woman to hold that position.
ReplyDeleteMy poet is Nikki Giovanni and I found it interesting that she was actually named after her mother, and her full name is Yolande Cornelia Giovanni Jr. When she was a baby, her older sister started calling her Nikki for reasons no one really knows.
ReplyDeleteMy poet is T.S Eliot, and I learned that he went to Harvard, and was helped by another major poet of the time
ReplyDeleteMy poet is Robert Frost, and I learned that he won four Pulitzer Prizes, and recited a poem at JFK’s inauguration.
ReplyDeleteMy poet is Ada Limón and I learned she served on the judges panel for the 2013 National Book Award in Poetry and she went to NYU, graduating and moving to Provincetown, MA to work with the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center the spring before the 9/11 attacks.
ReplyDeletemy poet is e.e.cummings and I learned that he wrote a poem each day between the ages of 8 and 22. he also doesn't observe many linguistic conventions so he uses mostly lowercase text in his poems (unless he wants to add emphasis with uppercase)
ReplyDeleteMy poet e.e Cummings lived ang grew up in Cambridge Massachusetts.
ReplyDeleteMy poet, Margaret Atwood, spent her summers in the wild portions of Canada because her dad was an entomologist. So her dad needed to go up there for his work which is studying insects.
ReplyDeleteMy poet is Ha Jin he is a Chinese American writer and he joined the military at age 14. He studied in creative writing at Boston University.
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