Robert William Service was born on 16 January 1874 in Preston, Lancashire, England, and died on 11 September 1958 at Lancieux, in Brittany, France. Few poets have occupied quite the cultural territory that Service came to possess. He was not, by his own candid admission, a poet of intricate philosophical argument or formal innovation. He called much of what he wrote “verse” rather than “poetry,” a distinction that re…
“The only society I like is rough and tough, and the tougher the better. There's where you get down to bedrock and meet human people.”
Neighbourhood:
Edwardian Poets, Folk & Ballad Poets, Nature Poets, Scottish Poets
Emotional landscape: Fear, Despair, Sorrow
Joaquin Miller, born Cincinnatus Hiner Miller on September 8, 1837, and dead on February 17, 1913, lived a life that seemed designed to invite legend. He was a poet, journalist, lawyer, teacher, dramatist, lecturer, rancher, and relentless self-inventor. To admirers in the nineteenth century, he was the “Poet of the Sierras,” a bard who had given the American West its own grand, romantic voice. To skeptics, he was an…
“I always wondered why God made Bierce.”
Neighbourhood:
American Poets, Folk & Ballad Poets, Love Poets, Nature Poets, Victorian Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Despair, Longing
