Alcoholism

Paul Verlaine (1844-1896) as a youthful poet frequented the coterie of Leconte de Lisle where his verses were favourably received. Shortly after his marriage in 1870, Verlaine met Arthur Rimbaud, and in 1872 he abandoned his wife and child and went away with the young poet to Belgium and England. After a quarrel in which Rimbaud was shot and wounded, Verlaine was imprisoned for two years. At this time he sincerely repented his rather sordid past, but after his release he soon fell back into the old ways and died of acute alcoholism. The poetry of Verlaine is outstanding because of its evocative melancholy and its delicate effects. The musical quality of the verse and the elusive sensations it conveys are instantly appealing.

• "Paul Verlaine." Representative French Poetry. Ed. Victor E. Graham. 2nd edn. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1965. 95-100.

Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867) spent most of his life in Paris, though one can see in some of his poetry the influence of an early voyage he made to the East Indies. His mother and stepfather had encouraged this trip in the hope that it would make Baudelaire forget about following a literary career. When Baudelaire returned to France he extravagantly spent the inheritance he received at the age of twenty-one from his own father's estate. He was then drawn into the bohemian artistic circles of the times, where, in particular, he formed an unhappy liaison with an unscrupulous woman, Jeanne Duval. Baudelaire is a superlative craftsman but his poetry reveals the tormented soul torn between sordid ugliness and beauty, despondency and hope, "satanism" and religion. Baudelaire was obsessed by this "spleen et idéal," as he called it, and his Fleurs du mal, first published in 1857, so shocked the public that the poet was brought to trial and heavily fined. The influence of Baudelaire has been tremendous, and he is regarded by many as the greatest poet in any language in the nineteenth century.

• Baudelaire, Charles. Oeuvres complètes Paris: Éditions de la Nouvelle revue française, 1918-.
• "Charles Baudelaire." Representative French Poetry. Ed. Victor E. Graham. 2nd edn. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1965. 80-85.

• Henry Kendall papers: State Library of New South Wales, and National Library of Australia.
• Kendall, Thomas Henry. Leaves from Australian Forests. Melbourne: George Robertson, 1869.
• --. Poems and Songs. Sydney: J. R. Clarke, 1862. Internet Archive.
• --. Songs from the Mountains. Sydney: William Maddock, 1880. Google book.
• -- The Poems of Henry Kendall. Ed. Bertram Stephens. Sydney: Angus and Robertson, 1920. Internet Archive. Sydney Electronic Text and Image Service (SETIS).
• Reed, T.T. "Kendall, Thomas Henry (1839-1882)." Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 5. Melbourne University Press, 1974. 13-14.
• --. Henry Kendall: A Critical Appreciation. Adelaide: Rigby, 1960.

We are grateful for access to AustLit in the preparation of these poems.

• Grace, Sherrill. "Gwendolyn MacEwen". Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 53: Canadian Writers Since 1960, First Series. A Bruccoli Clark Layman Book. Edited by W. H. New. The Gale Group, 1986. 279-82.
• MacEwen, Gwendolyn. Selah. Toronto, Ontario: Aleph, 1961. PR6063 .A2 S4 E. J. Pratt Library at Victoria University
• --. The Drunken Clock. Toronto, Ontario: Aleph, 1961. PR6063 .A26 D7 E. J. Pratt Library at Victoria University.
• --. The Rising Sun. New York, NY: Contact Press, 1963; published as The Rising Fire, 1964. PS8524 .E95 R5 Robarts Library
• --. A Breakfast for Barbarians. Toronto, Ontario: Ryerson, 1966. PS8524 .E95 B7 Robarts Library.
• --. The Shadow-Maker. Toronto, Ontario: Macmillan, 1969. PS8524 .E95 S4 Robarts Library.
• --. The Armies of the Moon. Toronto, Ontario: Macmillan, 1972. PS8524 .E95 A8 Robarts Library.
• --. Magic Animals: Selected Poems Old and New. Toronto, Ontario: Macmillan, 1974; published as Magic Animals: Selected Poetry of Gwendolyn MacEwen. Don Mills, ON: Stoddart Publishing, 1984. PS8524 .E95 M3 Robarts Library.
• --. The Fire-Eaters. Ottawa, Ontario: Oberon Press, 1976. PS8524 .E95 F5 Robarts Library.
• --. The T. E. Lawrence Poems. Oakville, Ontario: Mosaic Press, 1982. PS8524 .E95 T22 1982 Robarts Library.
• --. Earthlight: Selected Poetry of Gwendolyn MacEwen, 1963-1982. Toronto, Ontario: General Publishing, 1982. PS8524 .E95 E3 Robarts Library.
• --. Afterworlds. Toronto, Ontario: McClelland and Stewart, 1987. PS8524 .E95 A47 1987 Robarts Library.
• Sullivan, Rosemary. Shadow Maker: The Life of Gwendolyn MacEwen. Toronto: Harper Collins, 1995.

For more poems, see the Academy of America Poets

• At the Fishhouses
• Filling Station
• In the Waiting Room
• Little Exercise
• One Art
• Over 2,000 Illustrations and a Complete Concordance
• Suicide of a Moderate Dictator
• The Armadillo
• The Fish
• The Moose
• Visits to St. Elizabeths

the Poetry Archive

• Roosters
• Crusoe in England
• At the Fish Houses
• Filling Station

and The Poetry Foundation

• A Miracle for Breakfast
• At the Fishhouses
• Filling Station
• The Man-Moth
• The Mountain
• Visits to St. Elizabeths

   

  • • Bishop, Elizabeth. North & South. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1946, 1964.

    PS 3503.I785 N6 Robarts Library

    • --. Poems: North & South [and] A Cold Spring. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 1955.

    PS 3503.I785 P6 Robarts Library

    • --. Questions of Travel. New York: Farrar and Straus, 1965.

    PS 3503.I785 Q4 Robarts Library

    • --. Selected Poems. London: Chatto and Windus, 1967.

    PS 3503.I785 A6 1967 Robarts Library

    • --. The Ballad of the Burglar of Babylon. New York: Farrar and Straus, 1968.

    PS 3503.I785 B35 1968 Robarts Library

    • --. The Complete Poems. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1969.

    PS 3503.I785 1969 Robarts Library

    • --. Geography III. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1976.

    PS 3503.I785 G4 Robarts Library

    • --. The Complete Poems, 1927-1979. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1983.

    PS 3503.I785 1983 Robarts Library

    • --. Edgar Allen Poe & the Juke-box. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2006.

    PS 3503.I785 E34 2006X Robarts Library

The works of Dylan Thomas are in copyright and may only be published with permission of his publisher.

For a biography, see the Dylan Thomas Home Page, owned by the City and County of Swansea and managed by the Dylan Thomas Centre; and

• Ferris, Paul. "Thomas, Dylan Marlais (1914–1953)." Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Ed. H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison. Oxford: OUP, 2004. Online ed. Ed. Lawrence Goldman. Jan. 2011.

• Thomas, Dylan. 18 Poems. 1934.
• --. Twenty-five Poems. 1936.
• --. The Map of Love. 1939.
• --. Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog. 1940. [prose fiction]
• --. Deaths and Entrances. 1946.
• --. Collected Poems 1934-1952. 1952.
• --. Under Milk Wood. 1954. [radio play]
• --. Adventures in the Skin Trade. 1955. [prose fiction]
• --. A Prospect of the Sea. 1955. [prose fiction]
• --. Selected Letters. Ed. C. Fitzgibbon. 1965.
• --. The Poems of Dylan Thomas. 1971.
• --. A Child’s Christmas in Wales. Illustrated by Edward Ardizzone. London: Dolphin, 1986.
• --. The Broadcasts. Ed. Ralph Maud. London: Dent, 1991.
• --. The Filmscripts. Ed. John Ackerman. London: Dent, 1995.
• --. Collected Stories. Ed. Walford Davies. London: Phoenix, 2000.

Born October 7, 1849, James Whitcomb Riley gave up formal education in Greenfield Academy, Indiana, early to do art and make a living however he could, as by sign-painting, one-man stand-up comedy, and medicine shows at home and on the road. He then turned to journalism, first in Greenfield, and afterwards with the Anderson Democrat and the Indianapolis Journal from 1877 to 1885, by 1879 as its resident verse-humorist. During this period he developed his Hoosier dialect and published some of his most loved poems, first in the newspapers, and then in volumes that garnered him many faithful readers:

• "The Old Swimmin' Hole" and 'Leven More Poems. 1883.
• Afterwhiles. 1887. PS 2704 A45 1898
• Pipes o' Pan at Zekesbury. 1888.
• Old-fashioned Roses. 1888. PS 2704 .O48 1889
• Rhymes of Childhood. 1890.
• Green Fields and Running Brooks. 1892. PS 2704 G7 1893.
• Poems Here at Home. 1893.
• Armazindy. 1894.
• A Child World. 1896.
• The Rubaiyat of Doc Sifers 1897.
• Riley Child-rhymes. 1899. PS 2704 C5
• Riley Farm-rhymes. 1899. PS 2704 C5 1899
• Home-Folks. 1900.
• Book of Joyous Children. 1902. PS 2704 B4

From 1882 until 1903, and with Bill Nye after 1886, Riley went on reading tours of the United States and received many honours, including membership in the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1911. That year, on his birthday, Indiana and New York City schools celebrated his work, an honour that was extended in 1912 to schools nation-wide. A 6-volume collection of the complete works of this kind, wise poet of everyday Americans was published in 1913. His died, after having lived for some years unmarried, ill from strokes, with friends in Lockerbie Street, Indianapolis, on July 22, 1916. See also

• Crowder, Richard. Those Innocent Years: The Legacy and Inheritance of a Hero of the Victorian Era, James Whitcomb Riley. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1957.
• Letters. Ed. William Lyon Phelps. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1930. PS 2706 A53 1930 Robarts Library.
• Revell, Peter. James Whitcomb Riley. New York: Twayne, 1970. PS 2706 R4 Robarts Library.
• Russo, Anthony J. and Dorothy R. A Bibliography of James Whitcomb Riley. Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Society, 1944. Z 8746 .2 R8 Robarts Library.