Arguably one of the first real modern poets of the twentieth century, T.S. Eliot’s poetry came to define the both the restlessness of the Jazz Age and the disillusionment of the “lost generation” that followed the First World War.

Thomas Stearns Eliot was born in Missouri in 1888. He lived in St. Louis until he left to attend Harvard at age 18. After graduating from Harvard with undergraduate and masters’ degrees, Eliot traveled to Paris, then returned to work on doctorate studies at his alma mater. However, he soon relocated to England, where he married Vivienne Haigh-Wood and worked as a teacher and a banker.

Poet Ezra Pound discovered Eliot in London, and began to encourage Eliot’s poetry. With Pound’s assistance, Eliot published “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” and soon became one of the foremost contemporary poets in the world. “Prufrock,” with it’s frank sexuality and unusual construction that included a recurring chorus, more like a popular song than a poem, was an immediate success. His critical reputation was forever established upon the publication of The Waste Land, a lengthy, undeniably epic poem, in 1922. The Waste Land was quickly recognized as a work of genius, and with it, Eliot gained renown throughout the world as both a poet and as a literary critic.

His own literary reputation established, Eliot began work at publisher Faber & Faber, where he took pride in discovering and publishing other poets. He would eventually become director of the publishing house. He became a British Citizen in 1927, and in 1933 separated from his wife (he would go on to marry Valerie Fletcher in 1956).

Although many would say his best work was completed early in his career, Eliot was far from content to rest upon his laurels, and continued to grow as a writer, writing and publishing poetry, prose, and plays. Among his best-known works post-The Waste Land include the poem “Ash Wednesday,” the critical works The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism and Notes Towards the Definition of Culture and the plays Murder in the Cathedral and The Cocktail Party.

Eliot was honored with the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1948. He died in his adopted hometown of London in 1965, one of the most lauded, influential, and indeed famous poets of his age.

As most of Eliot’s poems are lengthy, excerpts are included here:

Excerpt from The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock:

Excerpt from The Waste Land:

Paul Laurence Dunbar’s poetry made him the first African-American poet to reach national prominence while also assuring him a place in American literature.

Born in 1872 to former slaves, Paul Laurence Dunbar overcame a childhood marked by poverty and discrimination. Dunbar’s mother, Matilda, had no formal education but instilled an appreciation for education and literature, particularly poetry, into her children, resulting in Paul Laurence Dunbar memorizing and writing poetry by the age of 6.

After finishing school as the only African-American in his school, Dunbar began writing, going so far as to publish an African-American newsletter. However, early in his career, he was forced to support himself as an elevator operator, unable to support himself through his writing alone.

Dunbar’s poetry was a mixture of dialect writing that attempted to portray African-American life with a realism not-yet heard of at the time and more modern, conventional poetry, allowing him to find a wider audience than many African-American poets of the era.

As he shared his writing and poetry with friends and by giving readings, Dunbar’s reputation began to grow, and in 1892, he paid for the publication of his first volume of poetry, Oak and Ivy,
continuing work as an elevator operator to pay the publisher and to have an opportunity to plug and sell his book. By 1893, his renown was such that he was asked to recite poetry at the World’s Fair in Chicago, an opportunity that allowed him to meet the most famous African-American man in America at the time, Fredrick Douglass, who praised Dunbar highly.

With the help of friends, Dunbar moved to Toledo, Ohio, and published his second book, Majors and Minors. When the critic and novelist William Dean Howells praised the book in a magazine, Dunbar’s book began to sell and his reputation to grown on a national scale.

Dunbar’s fame continued to grow both nationally and internationally. He married Alice Ruth Moore, a writer and teacher with a Master’s Degree; however, the marriage was short-lived, and his resulting depression and alcohol abuse worsened his health, which was already poor due to tuberculosis. He died in 1906, the author of a dozen books of poetry, four short-story collection, and five novels.

Although not as well-known today as he once was, Paul Laurence Dunbar is still widely-respected due to the fact that his poetry and resulting success helped to open doors for other African-American poets and writers.

Selected poems by Paul Laurence Dunbar:

A Death Song

Invitation to Love

Not They Who Soar

Perhaps better known by her pseudonym “H.D.,” the poet Hilda Doolittle’s spare, emotionally-disconnected poetry helped to usher in the modern aesthetic in poetry, despite the fact that her work was little read or appreciated in its day. However, she became a feminist icon when rediscovered by scholars during the 1970s women’s movement.

Hilda Doolittle was born in 1886 in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania to an astronomer father and Moravian mother, whose family influence on Hilda was strong.

While attending Bryn Mawr, Doolittle befriended poets Marianne Moore, William Carlos Williams, and Ezra Pound, whom would be an especially important influence on her career as a poet, as Pound, to whom Doolittle was engaged for a time, would be the first to champion her poetry by placing it in Poetry magazine.

Doolittle traveled to Europe in 1909, ostensibly on vacation, but she would remain for the rest of her life, spending most of the time in England or Switzerland. As an expatriate, she began writing poetry in earnest, under the name H.D, her work appearing in anthologies – such as Pounds Des Imagistes, which would forever link H.D. with the poetic Imagist movement, long after she moved on from the Imagist style – and in journals. Throughout her life, Doolittle would give conflicting reasons for writing under this and other pseudonyms. From 1913-1938 Doolittle was married to Richard Aldington, who edited one of the journals who published her poetry.

The first volume of verse published under the name H.D., Sea Garden, appeared in 1916 and established Doolittle’s critical reputation. Doolittle wrote prolifically in both poetry and prose, not to mention her prize-winning translations, right up until her death in 1961, although many of her works were published posthumously as her reputation continued to grow.

Poetry volumes by H.D. include:

Prose works by H.D. include:

Selected poems by H.D.:

Heat

Stars Wheel in Purple

Leda

John Donne’s poetry has transcended both time and language, speaking to readers across ages and continents, as fresh and meaningful today as it was when written.

John Donne’s life was as interesting and controversial as his poetry. Born in London in 1572 to a well-to-do Catholic family at a time when Catholicism was unpopular in England, John Donne, along with his siblings, was raised by his mother, Elizabeth, after his father died in 1576.

Education was a central aspect of Donne’s life. He was enrolled at the University of Oxford at 11, then at the University of Cambridge, although he took no degree.

Donne’s first book of poetry, Satires was written after his brother Henry died in prison, charged with giving sanctuary to a Catholic priest. Not surprisingly, the poems reflect Donne’s questioning of his own faith. Shortly thereafter, he published book of love poems, Songs and Sonnets, which began to cement his reputation, not to mention earn him notoriety; the explicit sexual nature of the poems in Songs and Sonnets was almost unheard of at the time.

Donne was not, however, content to rest upon his laurels, or his career as a poet, instead turning adventurer, joining expeditions to both Spain and the Azores. After he returned to England, he secured appointment as secretary to Lord Ellesmere.

His career in politics seemingly secured, Donne destroyed his political aspirations when, in 1601, he eloped with 17-year-old Anne More, the daughter of Sir George More, Lieutenant of the Tower of London, and found himself in disgrace. Donne’s unhappy father-in-law had the new husband imprisoned for a time, and the scandal destroyed any hope for Donne’s professional career.

Donne’s fortunes turned considerably. He now had to support a family that would grow to include seven children. Although friends helped the Donnes, and he practiced law, poverty was inevitable. The changed circumstances did not deter his writing; he continued to write both poetry and polemic.

Despite his reputation as a rakehell in his younger days, Donne became increasingly concerned with the spiritual as he grew older. He renounced the Catholic faith in his writings, which won him both patronage and the favor of King James I. This favor was not without strings – the King persuaded him to the point of blackmail to take Anglican orders and become a Royal Chaplain. Ironically, it was his sermons that gave Donne his greatest fame.

For the remainder of his life, Donne would dedicate most of his writings – including his poetry – to religious concerns and with death. Just before his death in 1631, he wrote what was to be his elegy, titled “Hymne to God, my God, In my Sicknesse.”

Some of John Donne’s most famous poems:

Woman’s Constancy

“Death, be not proud”

Song

Almost unknown as a poet in her own lifetime in the Victorian era, Emily Dickinson came to be known as one of the foremost of American poets after her work was rediscovered in the 20th century. Modern readers were able to appreciate what 19th century readers were not; Dickinson’s short, often untitled poems, with their unusual rhyming schemes and non-standard capitalization and punctuation were considered too abstract and jarring for the gentler Victorian tastes, but for the modern reader, remain refreshing, despite the recurring themes of death and despair.

Born in 1830 in Amherst, Massachusetts, Emily Dickinson’s family was well-known and widely respected within the community. Dickinson herself also became well-known to the community; however, she became nearly infamous for her bizarre behavior – such as dressing only in white – and her refusal to leave home or even her room after completing her education.

Despite the fact that she rarely left her home, Emily Dickinson had many friends with whom she corresponded and shared some of her poems. Besides the poems she shared with friends, very few of Dickinson’s poems saw the light of day during her lifetime – fewer than twelve were published before her death.

Therefore, the story of Emily Dickinson as a poet actually begins after her death in 1886, when her sister Lavinia discovered Emily’s collection of poetry, copied carefully into manuscript books, as though Emily intended for them to be found after her death. The first collection of Emily Dickinson’s poetry was published four years after her death by her friends Mabel Loomis Todd and Thomas Wentworth Higginson; this collection, however, was edited considerably in content in order to make Dickinson’s poetry more accessible to the Victorian-era reader.

This first collection of 115 poems was an unqualified success; the demand for poetry by Dickinson was such that two more collections appeared within six years.

These poems were not, however, the same versions of Dickinson’s poems that are known to modern readers. The heavy editing courtesy of Todd and Higginson made Dickinson’s poetry more palatable for the tastes at the time, but it wasn’t until Thomas H. Johnson compiled Dickinson’s original poetry manuscripts for publication in 1955 that the unadulterated versions of her poems were seen.

Among Dickinson’s best known poems are:

Because I could not stop for death:

Heart! We will forget him!

I heard a fly buzz