John Donne

John Donne

 

John Donne was born between January 24 and June 19, 1572. He was primarily raised by his mother, Elizabeth, because his father died in 1576. He was born and raised in London in a wealthy Catholic family when England was strongly anti-Catholic. Donne attended Oxford for 3 years, and Cambridge for 3 years, yet he did not end up receiving a degree in anything. John Donne is most well known for his "erotic love poetry"; his most famous works include "Holy Sonnet XIV: Batter My Heart, Three-Personed God", "For Whom the Bell Tolls", "The Flea" and "The Broken Heart". Donne somehow manages to incorporate both the "raunchy" and the "religious" in his works, and the language is dense which makes his poetry great to read. He died March 31, 1631.

THE FLEA. by John Donne MARK but this flea, and mark in this, How little that which thou deniest me is ; It suck'd me first, and now sucks thee, And in this flea our two bloods mingled be. Thou know'st that this cannot be said A sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead ;     Yet this enjoys before it woo,     And pamper'd swells with one blood made of two ;     And this, alas ! is more than we would do. O stay, three lives in one flea spare, Where we almost, yea, more than married are. This flea is you and I, and this Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is. Though parents grudge, and you, we're met, And cloister'd in these living walls of jet.     Though use make you apt to kill me,     Let not to that self-murder added be,     And sacrilege, three sins in killing three. Cruel and sudden, hast thou since Purpled thy nail in blood of innocence? Wherein could this flea guilty be, Except in that drop which it suck'd from thee? Yet thou triumph'st, and say'st that thou Find'st not thyself nor me the weaker now. 'Tis true ; then learn how false fears be ; Just so much honour, when thou yield'st to me, Will waste, as this flea's death took life from thee.

http://blog.sfgate.com/drader/2011/03/03/the-10-greatest-poets-my-list/
http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/john_donne/poems
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Donne

William Ernest Henley

William Ernest Henley

Born:23 August 1849 in Gloucester, England

School: The Crypt Grammar  School in Gloucester

Famous Work: Invictus
                           Margaritae Soroi
                           Pro Rege Nostro

Died: 11 July 1903

Favorite poem by William Ernest Henley: Invictus
                         Invictus

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
                                                    Under the bludgeonings of chance
                                                    My head is bloody, but unbowed.

                                                   Beyond this place of wrath and tears
                                                   Looms but the Horror of the shade,
                                                   And yet the menace of the years
                                                   Finds and shall find me unafraid.

                                                   It matters not how strait the gate,
                                                   How charged with punishments the scroll.
                                                   I am the master of my fate:
                                                   I am the captain of my soul.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FozhZHuAcCs Invicutus read by Morgan Freeman


                            

 

William Ernest Henley

William Ernest Henley

Born

T.S. Eliot

Born:

September 26,1888 in Saint Louis, Missouri

Early Life:

           TS Eliot Was raised in Saint Louis Missouri. He struggled with a congenital double hernia, a condition where one’s intestines jut through the bowel wall and cause abdominal ruptures. Because of this, Eliot was put on sports restriction, only rather than just being sports, he essentially couldn't socialize. As Eliot was often isolated, he developed a love for literature.

Education:

            1898 to 1905, Eliot attended Smith Academy
            1906 to 1909: studied philosophy at Harvard
            Graduate work in philosophy: 
                        Sorbonne (1910 - 1911)
                        Harvard (1909 - 1910, 1911-1914)
                        Merton College, Oxford (1914 - 1915)

Famous Works:

            “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” (published 1910)

            “Gerontion” (published 1920)

            “The Waste Land” (published 1922)

“The Hollow Men” (published 1925)

“Ash Wednesday” (published 1930)

Died:

January 4, 1965

Photo:

"Gerontion"

HERE I am, an old man in a dry month,
Being read to by a boy, waiting for rain.
I was neither at the hot gates
Nor fought in the warm rain
Nor knee deep in the salt marsh, heaving a cutlass,	5
Bitten by flies, fought.
My house is a decayed house,
And the jew squats on the window sill, the owner,
Spawned in some estaminet of Antwerp,
Blistered in Brussels, patched and peeled in London.	10
The goat coughs at night in the field overhead;
Rocks, moss, stonecrop, iron, merds.
The woman keeps the kitchen, makes tea,
Sneezes at evening, poking the peevish gutter.
I an old man,	15
A dull head among windy spaces.
Signs are taken for wonders. “We would see a sign”:
The word within a word, unable to speak a word,
Swaddled with darkness. In the juvescence of the year
Came Christ the tiger	20
In depraved May, dogwood and chestnut, flowering judas,
To be eaten, to be divided, to be drunk
Among whispers; by Mr. Silvero
With caressing hands, at Limoges
Who walked all night in the next room;	25
By Hakagawa, bowing among the Titians;
By Madame de Tornquist, in the dark room
Shifting the candles; Fraulein von Kulp
Who turned in the hall, one hand on the door. Vacant shuttles
Weave the wind. I have no ghosts,	30
An old man in a draughty house
Under a windy knob.
After such knowledge, what forgiveness? Think now
History has many cunning passages, contrived corridors
And issues, deceives with whispering ambitions,	35
Guides us by vanities. Think now
She gives when our attention is distracted
And what she gives, gives with such supple confusions
That the giving famishes the craving. Gives too late
What’s not believed in, or if still believed,	40
In memory only, reconsidered passion. Gives too soon
Into weak hands, what’s thought can be dispensed with
Till the refusal propagates a fear. Think
Neither fear nor courage saves us. Unnatural vices
Are fathered by our heroism. Virtues	45
Are forced upon us by our impudent crimes.
These tears are shaken from the wrath-bearing tree.
The tiger springs in the new year. Us he devours. Think at last
We have not reached conclusion, when I
Stiffen in a rented house. Think at last	50
I have not made this show purposelessly
And it is not by any concitation
Of the backward devils
I would meet you upon this honestly.
I that was near your heart was removed therefrom	55
To lose beauty in terror, terror in inquisition.
I have lost my passion: why should I need to keep it
Since what is kept must be adulterated?
I have lost my sight, smell, hearing, taste and touch:
How should I use it for your closer contact?	60
These with a thousand small deliberations
Protract the profit of their chilled delirium,
Excite the membrane, when the sense has cooled,
With pungent sauces, multiply variety
In a wilderness of mirrors. What will the spider do,	65
Suspend its operations, will the weevil
Delay? De Bailhache, Fresca, Mrs. Cammel, whirled
Beyond the circuit of the shuddering Bear
In fractured atoms. Gull against the wind, in the windy straits
Of Belle Isle, or running on the Horn,	70
White feathers in the snow, the Gulf claims,
And an old man driven by the Trades
To a a sleepy corner.
Tenants of the house,
Thoughts of a dry brain in a dry season.	75

http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1948/eliot-bio.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T._S._Eliot

http://www.bartleby.com/199/13.html

                     

Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Biography 
Ferlinghetti is an American Poet, Publisher, Playwright, Painter, and an Activist.

Born 
1919

Raised 
New York

Schools B.A. in Journalism at University of North Carolina
"Earned a doctoral degree in poetry at the Sorbonne in Paris with a dissertation entitled 'The City as Symbol in Modern Poetry: In Search of a Metropolitan Tradition'."


Famous works
Constantly Risking Absurdity
Wild Dreams Of A New Beginning
A Vast Confusion
Bird With Two Right Wings


Died 
...nope, still living

Favorite poem by Ferlinghetti:


Two Scavengers In A Truck,
Two Beautiful People In A Mercedes
By Lawrence Ferlinghetti


At the stoplight waiting for the light
                                                 Nine A.M. downtown San Francisco
               a bright garbage truck
                               with two garbage men in red plastic blazers
   standing on the back stoop
                                                one on each side hanging on
                    and looking down into
an elegant open Mercedes
with an elegant couple in it
The man
In a hip three-piece linen suit
With shoulder-length blond hair & sunglasses
The young blond woman so casually coifed
with a short skirt and colored stocking
On his way to his architect's office
And the two scavengers up since Four A.M.
Grungy from their route
On the way home
The older of the two with grey iron hair
And hunched back
Looking like some
Gargoyle Quasimodo
And the younger of the two
Also with sunglasses and long hair
About the same age as the Mercedes driver
And both scavengers gazing down
As from a great distance
At the cool couple
As if they were watching some odorless TV ad
In which everything is possible
And the very red light for an instant
Holding all four close together
As if anything at all were possible
Between them
Across that great gulf
In the high seas
Of this democracy








additional sources
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/lawrence-ferlinghetti

No man is an Island

For whom the bell tolls a poem (No man is an island) by John Donne No man is an island, Entire of itself. Each is a piece of the continent, A part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less. As well as if a promontory were. As well as if a manor of thine own Or of thine friend's were. Each man's death diminishes me, For I am involved in mankind. Therefore, send not to know For whom the bell tolls, It tolls for thee. These famous words by John Donne were not originally written as a poem  - the passage is taken from the 1624 Meditation 17, from  Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions and is prose.  The words of the original passage are as follows: John Donne Meditation 17 Devotions upon Emergent Occasions "No man is an iland, intire of it selfe; every man is a peece of the Continent, a part of the maine; if a clod bee washed away by the Sea, Europe is the lesse, as well as if a Promontorie were, as well as if a Mannor of thy friends or of thine owne were; any mans death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankinde; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee...."

Arian Foster

Arian Foster

Born: August 24, 1986 (age 26)

Raised: Albuquerque, New Mexico later moved to San Diego

Schools: Went to Tennessee and majored in Philosophy

I miss you like the sun rise

by Arian Foster

I miss you like the sun rise

Winter nights became reality’s home,

Snow men stand here like soldiers of Rome,

My tears freeze before they kiss the wind,

I think of warmth and miss you then,

Since when when did rose petals crack While pondering love,

Dressed in pitch black with this sombering sun,

I sit an fish, out of the river Styx,

Catching cold souls with their quivered lips,

They whisper sweet like lemons drip,

And gaze my eyes like Medusa’s gift,

My bait is smiles.

Unhook me, look me not into dusk,

Ease my cuts, and release my lust,

Inhale my words, and breathe my wants,

Let the light marry my eyes,

And let the same inherit the skies.

I miss you like the sun rise.