Stephen Vincent Benét was a poet, novelist, and storyteller whose voice captured the sprawling, contradictory soul of America with a warmth and vigor that few writers of his era could match. In an age when modernism often turned inward toward fragmentation and irony, Benét looked outward, embracing history, folklore, and the ordinary heroism of everyday people. His words thrum with the crack of rifles at Harpers Ferr…
“Let each one of us say, 'I am an American. I intend to stay an American. I will do my best to wipe from my heart hate, rancor and political prejudice. I will sustain my government. And, through good days or bad, I will try to serve my country.”
Neighbourhood:
American Poets, Folk & Ballad Poets, Modernist Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Irony, Despair
Hilda Doolittle, who published almost all her work as H.D., was born on 10 September 1886 in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and died on 27 September 1961 in Zürich, Switzerland. Few modern writers have so thoroughly transformed apparent limitation into artistic amplitude. The initials by which she became famous could seem austere, even impersonal: a pair of letters fit for the clean, compressed poems associated with Imagis…
“But the world of the great creative artists is never dead.”
Neighbourhood:
American Poets, Imagist Poets, LGBTQ+ Poets, Modernist Poets, Women Poets
Emotional landscape: Wonder, Spirituality, Longing