Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) was an intensely public poet and an intensely private man. His own griefs, and they were considerable, barely make an appearance in all the large body of his ...

His poem, “Christmas Bells,” would, over time, become a song titled by the poem’s first line. The poem, which started off celebrating peace on earth, took a sullen turn. “Then from each black, ...

John Crowe Ransom (1888–1974) was an example of a kind of American — particularly Southern — poetic sense and learnedness that nearly captured literary America from the 1930s to the 1950s. These were ...

Five months ago, poet Richard Blanco joined Boston Public Radio to launch our recurring segment, Village Voice, where we turn to poetry to make sense of the news of the day. Today is the second time ...