Diane di Prima

Diane di Prima

The Italian American poet and artist's “willingness to speak” about what was culturally unspeakable was a liberation.
TS Eliot

T.S. Eliot

Remembering the famous modernist poet T.S. Eliot with his poem "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock."
Letitia Elizabeth Landon

The Life of Forgotten Poet Letitia Elizabeth Landon

She was known as the "female Byron." So why doesn't anyone read L.E.L. anymore?
George Orwell

Think Again

Rereading W.H. Auden, George Orwell, and James Baldwin in times of crisis.
Chatterton by Henry Wallis, 1856

The Posthumous Mystique of Thomas Chatterton

He died young of suicide and became the quintessence of the tormented poet. But his death may have been an accident, and his greatest work, forgeries.
Ruth Page and Harald Kreutuzberg in Bacchanale, 1934

Ruth Page, the Ballerina Who Danced Poems

In the 1940s, American dancer Ruth Page combined poetry, performance, and personal reflection to create a new type of dance.
Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle, by Peter Lely

“Mad Meg,” the Poet-Duchess of 17th Century England

Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, shocked the establishment by publishing poems and plays under her own name.
Georgie Hyde-Lees

W. B. Yeats’ Live-in “Spirit Medium”

In the Victorian era, a different kind of ghostwriting became popular—largely because it allowed men to take all the credit.
Lew Welch

The Poet Who Wanted to Be Eaten by Vultures

One day in 1971, the hard-drinking Beat poet Lew Welch walked into the woods of Nevada County and disappeared, possibly angling to be eaten by vultures.
John Clare

What This 19th-Century Poet Knew About the Future

The Anthropocene requires a new history to explain how humans transform the planet. The work of poet John Clare is a good place to start.