Sara Teasdale was born on 8 August 1884 in St. Louis, Missouri, and died there on 29 January 1933. During her lifetime she became one of the best-known American lyric poets of the early twentieth century, admired for verse that appeared effortless: brief, melodious, emotionally direct, and exquisitely shaped. Her poems spoke of love, solitude, desire, beauty, loss, the changing seasons, and death. Their clarity made…
“My theory is that poems are written because of a state of emotional irritation.”
Neighbourhood:
American Poets, Confessional Poets, Edwardian Poets, Nature Poets, Women Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Sorrow, Tenderness
Charles Stuart Calverley burst onto the Victorian literary scene like a sudden shaft of sunlight piercing the solemn clouds of high-minded poetry. Born in an age that prized ponderous epics and moralizing odes, he carved out a niche as the undisputed master of light verse, parody, and scholarly wit. His poems danced with verbal dexterity, skewering pretension while celebrating the simple joys of tobacco, beer, and sc…
“It used to be Leslie Stephen, and I know him or did know him well enough at Cambridge.”
Neighbourhood:
Light Verse Poets, Love Poets, Victorian Poets
Emotional landscape: Irony, Joy, Tenderness
