On January 25, 1876, in the quiet town of Plainfield, New Jersey, William Ellery Channing Leonard was born into a world of literary aspiration and transcendentalist idealism. His parents, fervent admirers of the New England intellectual tradition, named their only child after William Ellery Channing, the Unitarian minister who had mentored Ralph Waldo Emerson. This choice of name proved prophetic, for Leonard would s…
“We are human from the start. We do not need to see a man die to know death. Death is born with our birth.”
Neighbourhood:
American Poets, Confessional Poets, Death & Mortality, Modernist Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Sorrow, Tenderness
Philip Arthur Larkin (1922-1985) stands as one of the most significant English poets of the post-war era, a writer whose unflinching observations of ordinary life and masterful technical skill earned him a place among the finest poets of the 20th century. Often labeled as the "saddest heart in the post-war supermarket," Larkin crafted verse that captured the disillusionment and quiet desperation of modern Britain wit…
“I think that writing is rather like driving: you can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.”
Neighbourhood:
Confessional Poets, Death & Mortality
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Despair, Irony
