Showing results by narrator "Ghizela Rowe" in All Categories

Nathaniel Hawthorne was born on 4th July 1804 in Salem, Massachusetts, a town synonymous with the earlier Salem Witch Trials. It was instrumental in Hawthorne’s later use of American Gothic and dark romanticism in his writing. Hawthorne’s short stories were first published in magazines but in 1837 were collected and published as ‘Twice-Told Tales’. A steady literary career still did not come his way and so he worked in a good position at Salem’s port and married the love of his life, Sophia Peabody. They moved to live in ‘The Old Manse’ at Concord, Massachusetts.

William Butler Yeats was born in Sandymount in County Dublin, Ireland, on 13th June 1865. Yeats is perhaps best described as Ireland’s national poet in addition to being one of the major twentieth-century literary figures of the English tongue. He represents the ‘Romantic poet of modernism,’ with an extraordinary style created from the outward emphasis on the expression of emotions and the extensive use of symbolism, imagery and allusions.

Our quoted authority is not the people in white coats but those with a quill, a heart and a soul that can take these feelings of love and loss and with the ink of words put to verse feelings and emotions that can be re-lived and shared by all. As they venture through depression, war, slavery to heartache and the loss of loved ones our eyes may mist and tears gently fall at what collectively we have done, have experienced, have witnessed and lost.

Along the centuries numerous interpretations and definitions of Sufism have waxed and waned but the undeniable beauty of their verse in its myriad of forms including the musical Ghazal (love song), Masnavi (narrative) and Rubai (quatrain) always remains. Our chronological volume of the classic Sufi poets helps us understand the spiritual direction of Sufism, starting with Rabia in the 8th century through to Khwaja Ghulam Farid over a thousand years later.

In this series we look at short stories from many of our most accomplished writers. Miniature masterpieces with a lot to say. In this volume we examine some of the short stories of Virginia Woolf. Adeline Virginia Woolf was born in 1882 and was to become a founder of modernist writing. Her background is filled with elements of tragedy that she somehow overcame to become a revered writer. Her mother died when she was 13, her half sister Stella two years later and with that came her first of several nervous breakdowns.

In this volume of fifty poems our classic poets delve with storied verse into every facet of this institution. From the good, the bad and even the ugly, from the Wedding day to the realisation that divorce and separation maybe the better path. Between these two frontiers other avenues and facets are explored by the pens of many including Shakespeare, Khalil Gibran, Emily Dickinson and the Rossetti’s.

In this volume of classic poetry our wordsmiths are our companions on journeys near and far. They describe and create worlds that we can explore with them, word by word and line by line. In the company of Keats, Wordsworth, Bronte, Whitman, Kipling and a wealth of others these journeys in verse will be like no other.

Rudyard Kipling. With our almost religious zeal to categorise and pigeon hole everything it should come as little surprise that one of the poems we learnt at school should so regularly be voted the best ever poem. Whether ‘If..’ deserves that credit or not is irrelevant to this empire wandering artist who was not only a fine story teller but a great poet of the Empires, its people and views.

Sometimes we just want the best. But that involves choices, judgements, decisions. And that all depends on our feelings, our mood at the time. Even more so with poetry. Would we like a little more pathos, or love, or humour with that? Can we only choose one Keats? And ’If’? Surely Kipling wrote something else? So difficult to decide. This one or that? Is it easier to choose your 50 favourite poets or your 50 favourite poems?

Across fifty poems our classic poets including Christina Georgina Rossetti, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Thomas Hardy & Dante Gabriel Rossetti find verse and tender words to match the occasion. Their descriptions of nature’s ever-evolving landscape and humanity’s ever-changing lives emblazon the page with the lively ink that shapes us all.

For many of us Autumn, or as the Americans would say; Fall is the season of mixed emotions. Summer's long days are replaced by a chill in the air. The colours on the trees and fields ripen to warmer hues and the harvest is brought safely home. Yet with this bounty there is the knowledge that Nature is turning her attention to the harder, colder Winter month's ahead.

With the talents on display the most difficult task is choosing only ten. Their virtuosity, their craft and ambition scare belie the difficulties that society places upon most women. Their words cannot be denied, their literary heritage is safe forever.

Edgar Allan Poe (born Edgar Poe) was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on January 19th, 1809, and was orphaned at an early age. Taken in by the Allan family, his education was cut short by lack of money, and he went to the military academy West Point where he failed to become an officer. His early literary works were poetic, but he quickly turned to prose. He worked for several magazines and journals until in January 1845, The Raven was published and became an instant classic.

John Clare was born on 13th July, 1793 in Helpston, a few miles north of Peterborough. Schooled only until the age of 12, his early career was that of agricultural labourer, pot boy, gardener and lime burner. His early life of hardship and frequent malnutrition led to his diminutive stature of five feet and contributed to his later health problems. In 1820 his first poems were published and began to earn him a reputation as the 'Northamptonshire Peasant Poet'. His poetry sold well, but only occasionally did that and other incomes keep his head above water.

Gilbert Keith Chesterton was born in Campden Hill, Kensington, on May 29th, 1874. Originally, after attending St Paul's School, he went to Slade to learn the art of illustration. In 1896 he joined a small London publisher and began his journalistic career as a freelance art and literary critic before going on to writing weekly columns in the Daily News and the Illustrated London News. Chesterton's poems range from the virtues and vices of England and the English to his worldview and religious beliefs.

John William Polidori was born on 7th September 1795, in London, to Gaetano Polidori. In 1816 Dr Polidori was given the job of Byron’s personal physician and accompanied him on a trip through Europe. The publisher John Murray offered Polidori £500 to keep a diary of their travels. At the Villa Diodati, Byron’s rented villa at Lake Geneva in Switzerland, the pair met with Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Mary's stepsister, Claire Clairmont.

Poetry has over the centuries grouped poets or poems into many different themes and movements. Amongst its most unusual movements are the English wordsmiths, The Silver Poets. This select band lived during the sixteenth century reign of Queen Elizabeth 1st. Amongst their storied ranks were Sir Thomas Wyatt, Sir Philip Sidney, Henry Howard, the Earl of Surrey, Sir Walter Raleigh, John Davies, Michael Drayton and Mary Sidney (Herbert), the Countess of Pembroke.

Angels are undeniably associated with religion and more usually Christianity, Islam and Judaism. Often they are seen as supernatural beings, benevolent celestial intermediaries interposed between God, Heaven and humanity. Obviously there are complications, a fact that our classic poets through the centuries, including Alexander Pope, Edmund Spenser, Radclyffe Hall and Hafiz, use as they write verse to explain, to reveal and to help us understand exactly why Angels are so prevalent amongst our thoughts.

Mirabai was a Rajput princess born to the Rathore clan in 1498 in Kudaki, Rajasthan, in northern India. Despite being one of the most significant saints in the Bhakti tradition and an immensely popular Hindu mystic and religious poet, very few facts are actually known about her life including her date of birth. It is clear that her mother died when she was very young and she was greatly influenced by her father, also a worshipper of Krishna. From a young age, Mirabai’s devotion to Krishna was absolute surrender and complete devotion.

James Weldon Johnson was born in Jacksonville, Florida, on 17th June 1871. His mother, Helen, a musician and a public school teacher, initially home-schooled him, giving him a love of both English literature and European music. At 16, his education moved to Atlanta University, and he graduated with a degree in 1894. In 1904 Johnson helped in Theodore Roosevelt's presidential bid. On winning, Roosevelt appointed him as US consul at Puerto Cabello, Venezuela, in 1906 and then Nicaragua from 1909.