William Henry Davies, known throughout his writing life as W. H. Davies, was born on 3 July 1871 at 16 Portland Street in Newport, Monmouthshire, Wales, and died on 26 September 1940 in Nailsworth, Gloucestershire. He remains one of the most unusual figures in twentieth-century British literature: a poet of birds, rain, flowers, beggars, exhausted workers, roadside freedom, and the precarious dignity of people whom r…
“It takes more than a short holiday to get a real love of Nature; such a love as makes trees like human companions, and green the colour we look for everywhere we go.”
Neighbourhood:
Edwardian Poets, Georgian Poets, Nature Poets, Welsh Poets
Emotional landscape: Tenderness, Wonder, Longing
Richard Realf stands as one of the most enigmatic and poignant figures in nineteenth-century American poetry—a man whose extraordinary talents were matched only by the turbulence of his existence. Born on June 14, 1832, in the quiet village of Framfield in East Sussex, England, and dying by his own hand on October 28, 1878, in Oakland, California, Realf's forty-six years traced an arc of brilliance and despair, ideal…
“I have erred greatly in my life, and suffered greatly, but I have always been a servant and never a hireling of the truth.”
Neighbourhood:
American Poets, Death & Mortality, Nature Poets, Political Poets, Social Justice Poets, Victorian Poets
Emotional landscape: Wonder, Spirituality, Longing
Themes they return to
Distinctive words drawn from each poet’s critiqued poems — what they keep writing about, not just what their biographies mention.
Shared
From the biographies
social
W. H. Davies:
newport, monmouthshire, the soul destroyer, leisure, george bernard shaw, edward thomas, super-tramp, the autobiography of a super-tramp.
Richard Realf:
framfield, east sussex, oakland, john brown, bleeding kansas, guesses at the beautiful, lady byron, eliza cook.
