“All talk on modern poetry, by people who know,” wrote Mr. Carl Sandburg in Poetry, “ends with dragging in Ezra Pound somewhere. He may be named only to be cursed as wanton and mocker, poseur, trifler and vagrant.
Classic Articles on Writing
My Visit with Ralph Waldo Emerson by Walt Whitman
Whitman records their last meeting in journal entries are below. They are fascinating if you are a fan of American poetry. On September 17, 1881 Whitman goes to see Emerson.
Mark Twain Plagiarized Oliver Wendell Holmes
Once again we have found a quip from Twain that we feel needs to be highlighted in the pages of history. Twain is one of our favorite writers, especially when it comes to writing about writing.
Art and Nature in Poetry by Lord Byron
The beautiful but barren Hymettus—the whole coast of Attica, her hills and mountains, Pentelicus, Anchesmus, Philopappus, etc., etc.—are in themselves poetical, and would be so if the name of Athens, of Athenians, and her very ruins, were swept from the earth. But am I to be told that the “nature” of Attica would be more […]
The Late Great Edgar Allan Poe by Willa Cather
The Shakespeare society of New York, which is really about the only useful literary organization in this country, is making vigorous efforts to redress an old wrong and atone for a long neglect. Sunday, Sept. 22, it held a meeting at the Poe cottage
Death of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow by Walt Whitman
I have just return’d from an old forest haunt, where I love to go occasionally away from parlors, pavements, and the newspapers and magazines—and where, of a clear forenoon, deep in the shade of pines and cedars and
Walk At Night With Charles Dickens
In 1857 Dickens is believe to have taken these walks. He walked the streets of London at 2 O’clock in the morning. It is said that he had a lot of turmoil in his life at this time. The look at the streets of London in those early days is fascinating. The night streets […]
What it Takes to Write a Novel by Robert Louis Stevenson
This essay is a fascinating piece of writing that takes a look, by one of histories great authors, at what it takes to write a novel. Robert Louis Stevenson of course wrote 12 novels over his life time. He wrote the great novels Strange Case of Dr Jekyll […]
Oscar Wilde Reviews W.B. Yeats First Book of Poems
‘The Wanderings of Oisin and Other Poems is, I believe, the first volume of poems that Mr. Yeats has published, and it is certainly full of promise. It must be admitted that many of the poems are too fragmentary, too incomplete. They read like stray scenes out of unfinished plays, like things only half remembered, […]
THE POET AS PROPHET James Russell Lowell
The Poet as Prophet James Russell Lowell Poets are the forerunners and prophets of changes in the moral world. Driven by their fine nature to search into and reverently contemplate the universal laws of the soul, they find some fragment of the broken tables of God’s law, and interpret it, half-conscious of its mighty import. […]