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Robert Frost, "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" from The Poetry of Robert Frost, edited by Edward Connery Lathem. Copyright 1923, © 1969 by Henry Holt and Company, Inc., renewed 1951, by Robert Frost. Reprinted with the permission of Henry Holt and Company, LLC.

Source: Collected Poems, Prose, & Plays (Library of America, 1995)

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Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert... | Poetry Foundation

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Edgar Allan Poe (January 19, 1809 - October 7, 1849) was an American writer. He wrote horror stories and poems.

Edgar Allan Poe was born on January 19, 1809. His parents were two touring vaudeville actors, David Poe Jr. and Elizabeth Arnold Hopkins. David left the family under unknown circumstances whilst Poe was an infant. When Poe was two his mother died of tuberculosis, leaving Edgar an orphan. The wealthy John Allan took Edgar into his home in Richmond, Virginia. In 1815, the Allan family moved to England. Young Poe went to an English private school. After five years, the family moved back to Richmond, Virginia.

After moving back to Virginia, Poe entered the University of Virginia in 1826. While there, he gambled, lost money, and went into debt. John Allan became angry, and cut off all contact with Poe. In 1827, Poe published his first work, a collection of poetry titled, Tamerlane and Other Poems. Poe did not have his name published in the book; it was attributed to "a Bostonian."

Military life

Poe enlisted in the army. He used the name Edgar A. Perry and lied about his age. He was successful as a soldier and quickly became a sergeant major. While in the army his foster-mother Frances Allan died. Poe attempted to mend his relationship with John Allan. Poe soon left the army and enrolled at West Point in New York state.

Poe did not enjoy his time at West Point and got very bored. He was expelled in March 1831. At this point, John Allan disowned him. Poe was well-liked by other cadets. They contributed money to pay for Poe to publish a book of his poems called Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane, and Minor Poems. He soon moved to Baltimore, Maryland.

Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York

In Baltimore, Poe lived with his aunt, Maria Poe Clemm. She was the sister of Edgar's real father. Clemm also had a daughter named Virginia Clemm. Virginia admired Poe very much. In 1836, when Virginia was thirteen, she married Poe.

Poe was writing a lot by this time. He sold his first short story in 1832. His writing did not earn very much money. He also worked as an editor for various magazines over the years, becoming very well known for his literary criticism. Poe also was drinking off and on during these years.

In 1842, while Poe was living with Clemm and Virginia in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Virginia became sick with tuberculosis. The family moved to the New York City area in 1843 before settling in The Bronx. On January 29, 1845, Poe published his most famous poem, " The Raven", making him very popular. Virginia died a couple years later on January 30, 1847.

Poe's death is very mysterious. On September 27 1849, Poe left Richmond after a short visit. It is unknown what happened to him until October 3, when he was discovered outside of Gunner's Hall by a man named Joseph W. Walker in Baltimore. He was taken to Washington College Hospital. While in the hospital he became delirious and started seeing hallucinations. He died on October 7, 1849, in the hospital. Though it is not known what was his cause of death, there are several possible theories, including congestion of the brain, alcohol withdrawal, tuberculosis, and rabies.

Poe was buried in the grounds of the Westminster Church and Burying Ground after a small funeral with only a few people. On May 17, 1875, Poe was reburied at the front of the churchyard after a city-wide campaign to raise money to build a large monument. He is buried there alongside his wife Virginia, and Virginia's mother Maria Clemm.

Selected stories and poems

Short stories

"Berenice" (1835) Horror story about obsession

"The Black Cat" (1845) Horror story about a cat

"The Cask of Amontillado" (1846) A story of revenge

"A Descent Into The Maelström" (1845) Man vs. Nature, Adventure Story

"Eleonora" (1841) A love story

"The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar" (1845) Talking with a dead man

"The Fall of the House of Usher" (1839) An old house and its secrets

"The Gold Bug" (1843) A search for pirate treasure

"Hop-Frog" (1845) A dwarf seeks revenge

"The Imp of the Perverse" (1845) Procrastination and confession

"Ligeia" (1838) A haunting supernatural tale

"The Man of the Crowd" (1845) How to follow someone

"Manuscript Found in a Bottle" (1833) Adventure at sea

"The Masque of the Red Death" (1842) The horror of the plague

"Mesmeric Revelation" (1849) Conversation with a hypnotized dying man

"The Murders in the Rue Morgue" (1841) A detective story

"Never Bet the Devil Your Head" (1841) A comedy with a moral

"The Oval Portrait" (1842) A tragic love story

"The Pit and the Pendulum" (1842) A torture chamber

"The Premature Burial" (1844) About being buried alive

"The Purloined Letter" (1845) A detective story

"Silence - A Fable" (1838) A dream

"Some Words With a Mummy" (1845) A mummy speaks

"The Spectacles" (1844) A comedy about love at first sight

"The System of Dr. Tarr and Prof. Fether" (1845) Inside an insane asylum

"The Tell-Tale Heart" (1843) A murderer's guilt

Related pages

Preserved homes, landmarks, and museums

No childhood home of Poe is still standing, including the Allan family's Moldavia estate. The oldest standing home in Richmond, the Old Stone House, is in use as the Edgar Allan Poe Museum, though Poe never lived there. The collection includes many items that Poe used during his time with the Allan family, and also features several rare first printings of Poe works. 13 West Range is the dorm room that Poe is believed to have used while studying at the University of Virginia in 1826; it is preserved and available for visits. Its upkeep is now overseen by a group of students and staff known as the Raven Society.

The earliest surviving home in which Poe lived is in Baltimore, preserved as the Edgar Allan Poe House and Museum. Poe is believed to have lived in the home at the age of 23 when he first lived with Maria Clemm and Virginia (as well as his grandmother and possibly his brother William Henry Leonard Poe). It is open to the public and is also the home of the Edgar Allan Poe Society. Of the several homes that Poe, his wife Virginia, and his mother-in-law Maria rented in Philadelphia, only the last house has survived. The Spring Garden home, where the author lived in 1843-1844, is today preserved by the National Park Service as the Edgar Allan Poe National Historic Site. Poe's final home is preserved as the Edgar Allan Poe Cottage in the Bronx.

In Boston, a commemorative plaque on Boylston Street is several blocks away from the actual location of Poe's birth. The house which was his birthplace at 62 Carver Street no longer exists; also, the street has since been renamed "Charles Street South". A "square" at the intersection of Broadway, Fayette, and Carver Streets had once been named in his honor, but it disappeared when the streets were rearranged. In 2009, the intersection of Charles and Boylston Streets (two blocks north of his birthplace) was designated "Edgar Allan Poe Square". In March 2014, fundraising was completed for construction of a permanent memorial sculpture at this location. The winning design by Stefanie Rocknak depicts a life-sized Poe striding against the wind, accompanied by a flying raven; his suitcase lid has fallen open, leaving a "paper trail" of literary works embedded in the sidewalk behind him. The public unveiling on October 5, 2014 was attended by former US poet laureate Robert Pinsky.

Other Poe landmarks include a building in the Upper West Side where Poe temporarily lived when he first moved to New York. A plaque suggests that Poe wrote "The Raven" here. The bar still stands where legend says that Poe was last seen drinking before his death, in Fells Point in Baltimore. The drinking establishment is now known as "The Horse You Came In On", and local lore insists that a ghost whom they call "Edgar" haunts the rooms above.

Images for kids

This plaque in Boston marks the approximate location where Edgar Poe was born.

1845 portrait by Samuel Stillman Osgood

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Edgar Allan Poe (January 19, 1809 - October 7, 1849) was an American writer. He wrote horror stories and poems. Edgar Allan Poe was born on January 19, 1809. His parents were two touring vaudeville actors, David Poe Jr. and Elizabeth Arnold Hopkins. David left the family under unknown circumstances whilst Poe was an infant.

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Welcome to Shel Silverstein | Shel Silverstein

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Shel Silverstein's children's books, stories, poetry, illustrations, fun activities for kids, and teaching resources.

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Something there is that does love a wall,

That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,

And spills the upper boulders in the sun;

And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.

The work of hunters is another thing:

I have come after them and made repair

Where they have left not one stone on a stone,

But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,

To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,

No one has seen them made or heard them made,

But at spring mending-time we find them there.

I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;

And on a day we meet to walk the line

And set the wall between us once again.

We keep the wall between us as we go.

To each the boulders that have fallen to each.

And some are loaves and some so nearly balls

We have to use a spell to make them balance:

'Stay where you are until our backs are turned!'

We wear our fingers rough with handling them.

Oh, just another kind of out-door game,

One on a side. It comes to little more:

There where it is we do not need the wall:

He is all pine and I am apple orchard.

My apple trees will never get across

And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.

He only says, 'Good fences make good neighbors.'

Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder

If I could put a notion in his head:

'Why do they make good neighbors? Isnt it

Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.

Before I built a wall Id ask to know

What I was walling in or walling out,

And to whom I was like to give offense.

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,

That wants it down.' I could say 'Elves' to him,

But its not elves exactly, and Id rather

He said it for himself. I see him there

Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top

In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.

He moves in darkness as it seems to me,

Not of woods only and the shade of trees.

He will not go behind his fathers saying,

And he likes having thought of it so well

He says again, 'Good fences make good neighbors.'

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Mending Wall by Robert Frost | Poetry Foundation

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Something there is that doesn't love a wall,

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Home > By Subject > Poetry > Poems of Phillis Wheatley, 1753-1784
Slave poet kidnapped from Senegal as a child, raised and wrote in Boston; the BBC wrote an article about Phillis Wheatley which is online here.
01. On Virtue
02. To The University Of Cambridge
03. To the King's Most Excellent Majesty
04. On Being Brought from Africa to America
05. On the Death of a young Lady of Five Years of Age
06. An Hymn to the Morning
07. An Hymn to the Evening
08. (from) On Imagination
09. (from) Thoughts on the Works of Providence
10. (from) Thoughts on the Works of Providence

01. On Virtue

Auspicious queen, thine heav'nly pinions spread,
And lead celestial Chastity along;
Lo! now her sacred retinue descends,
Array'd in glory from the orbs above.
Attend me, Virtue, thro' my youthful years!
O leave me not to the false joys of time!
But guide my steps to endless life and bliss.
Greatness, or Goodness, say what I shall call thee,
To give me an higher appellation still,
Teach me a better strain, a nobler lay,
O thou, enthron'd with Cherubs in the realms of day!

02. To The University Of Cambridge, in New England

Students, to you 'tis giv'n to scan the heights
Above, to traverse the ethereal space,
And mark the systems of revolving worlds.
Still more, ye sons of science ye receive
The blissful news by messengers from heav'n,
How Jesus' blood for your redemption flows.
See him with hands out-stretcht upon the cross;
Immense compassion in his bosom glows;
He hears revilers, nor resents their scorn:
What matchless mercy in the Son of God!
When the whole human race by sin had fall'n,
He deign'd to die that they might rise again,
And share with him in the sublimest skies,
Life without death, and glory without end.

03. To the King's Most Excellent Majesty, 1768

Your subjects hope, dread Sire--
The crown upon your brows may flourish long,
And that your arm may in your God be strong!
O may your sceptre num'rous nations sway,
And all with love and readiness obey!

04. On Being Brought from Africa to America

'Twas mercy brought me from my Pagan land,
Taught my benighted soul to understand
That there's a God, that there's a Saviour too:
Once I redemption neither sought nor knew,
Some view our sable race with scornful eye,
"Their colour is a diabolic die."
Remember, Christians, Negroes, black as Cain,
May be refin'd, and join th' angelic train.

05. On the Death of a young Lady of Five Years of Age

Perfect in bliss she from her heav'nly home
Looks down, and smiling beckons you to come;
Why then, fond parents, why these fruitless groans?
Restrain your tears, and cease your plaintive moans.
Freed from a world of sin, and snares, and pain,
Why would you wish your daughter back again?
No--bow resign'd. Let hope your grief control,
And check the rising tumult of the soul.
Calm in the prosperous, and adverse day,
Adore the God who gives and takes away;
Eye him in all, his holy name revere,
Upright your actions, and your hearts sincere,
Till having sail'd through life's tempestuous sea,
And from its rocks, and boist'rous billows free,
Yourselves, safe landed on the blissful shore,
Shall join your happy babe to part no more.

06. An Hymn to the Morning

Attend my lays, ye ever honour'd nine,
Assist my labours, and my strains refine;
In smoothest numbers pour the notes along,
For bright Aurora now demands my song.

See in the east th' illustrious king of day!
His rising radiance drives the shades away--
But Oh! I feel his fervid beams too strong,
And scarce begun, concludes th' abortive song.

07. An Hymn to the Evening

Through all the heav'ns what beauteous dies are spread!
But the west glories in the deepest red:
So may our breasts with ev'ry virtue glow,
The living temples of our God below!

Night's leaden sceptre seals my drowsy eyes,
Then cease, my song, till fair Aurora rise.

Such is thy pow'r, nor are thine orders vain,
O thou the leader of the mental train:
In full perfection all thy works are wrought,
And thine the sceptre o'er the realms of thought.
Before thy throne the subject-passions bow,
Of subject-passions sov'reign ruler thou;
At thy command joy rushes on the heart,
And through the glowing veins the spirits dart.

09. ( from) Thoughts on the Works of Providence

Ador'd for ever be the God unseen,
Which round the sun revolves this vast machine,
Though to his eye its mass a point appears:
Ador'd the God that whirls surrounding spheres,
Which first ordain'd that mighty Sol should reign
The peerless monarch of th' ethereal train:
Of miles twice forty millions is his height,
And yet his radiance dazzles mortal sight
So far beneath--from him th' extended earth
Vigour derives, and ev'ry flow'ry birth:
Vast through her orb she moves with easy grace
Around her Phoebus in unbounded space;
True to her course th' impetuous storm derides,
Triumphant o'er the winds, and surging tides.

Almighty, in these wond'rous works of thine,
What Pow'r, what Wisdom, and what Goodness shine!
And are thy wonders, Lord, by men explor'd,
And yet creating glory unador'd.

10. ( from) Thoughts on the Works of Providence

Creation smiles in various beauty gay,
While day to night, and night succeeds to day:
That Wisdom, which attends Jehovah's ways,
Shines most conspicuous in the solar rays:
Without them, destitute of heat and light,
This world would be the reign of endless night:
In their excess how would our race complain,
Abhorring life! how hate its length'ned chain!
From air adust what num'rous ills would rise?
What dire contagion taint the burning skies?
What pestilential vapours, fraught with death,
Would rise, and overspread the lands beneath?

AmblesideOnline's free Charlotte Mason homeschool curriculum prepares children for a life of rich relationships with God, humanity, and the natural world.

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AmblesideOnline is a free homeschool curriculum that uses Charlotte Mason's classically-based principles to prepare children for a life of rich relationships with everything around them: God, humanity, and the natural world. Our detailed schedules, time-tested methods, and extensive teacher resources allow parents to focus on the unique needs of each child.

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🐱‍🚀 THE CAT IN THE HAT BOOK READ ALOUD | DR SEUSS

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The first-ever National Youth Poet Laureate, Amanda Gorman is the author of The One for Whom Food Is Not Enough (Penmanship Books, 2015).

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I was born in South Euclid, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland, and grew up there with my noisy and rowdy family: my parents (Ann and Arvel), my sister (Sandy), and my three brothers (Dennis, Doug, and Tom).

For a fictional view of what it was like growing up in my family, see Absolutely Normal Chaos. (In that book, the brothers even have the same names as my own brothers.) Our house was not only full of us Creeches, but also full of friends and visiting relatives.

In the summer, we usually took a trip, all of us piled in a car and heading out to Wisconsin or Michigan or, once, to Idaho. We must have been a very noisy bunch, and I'm not sure how our parents put up with being cooped up with us in the car for those trips. The five-day trip out to Idaho when I was twelve had a powerful effect on me: what a huge and amazing country! I had no idea then that thirty-some years later, I would recreate that trip in a book called Walk Two Moons.

Sharon Creech holding the medal

One other place we often visited was Quincy, Kentucky, where my cousins lived (and still live) on a beautiful farm, with hills and trees and swimming hole and barn and hayloft. We were outside running in those hills all day long, and at night we'd gather on the porch where more stories would be told. I loved Quincy so much that it has found its way into many of my books-transformed into Bybanks, Kentucky. Bybanks appears in Walk Two Moons, Chasing Redbird, and Bloomability. Bybanks also makes a brief appearance (by reference, but not by name) in The Wanderer.

When I was young, I wanted to be many things when I grew up: a painter, an ice skater, a singer, a teacher, and a reporter. It soon became apparent that I had little drawing talent, very limited tolerance for falling on ice, and absolutely no ability to stay on key while singing. I also soon learned that I would make a terrible reporter because when I didn't like the facts, I changed them. It was in college, when I took literature and writing courses, that I became intrigued by story-telling. Later, I was a teacher (high school English and writing) in England and in Switzerland. While teaching great literature, I learned so much about writing: about what makes a story interesting and about techniques of plot and characterization and point of view.

I started out writing novels for adults: The Recital and Nickel Malley were both written and published while I was living in England (these books were published in England only and are now out of print). But the next book was Absolutely Normal Chaos, and ever since that book I have written mainly about young people. Walk Two Moons was the first of my books to be published in America. When it received the Newbery Medal, no one was more surprised than I was. I'm still a little bit in shock.

In addition to Walk Two Moons, I wrote Absolutely Normal Chaos, Pleasing the Ghost, Chasing Redbird, Bloomability, The Wanderer, Love That Dog, Granny Torrelli Makes Soup, A Fine, Fine School, Fishing in the Air, Heartbeat, Who's That Baby?, Replay, The Castle Corona, Hate That Cat, The Unfinished Angel, The Great Unexpected, and The Boy on the Porch. I hope to be writing stories for a long, long time.

I am married to Lyle Rigg, and we live in Maine. We have two grown children, Rob and Karin, and being with my family is what I enjoy most. The next-best thing is writing stories.

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Robert Frost - American Poet & Four-time Pulitzer Prize Winner | Mini Bio | BIO

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Click here to learn more about Edgar Allen Poe

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Poe was a literary pioneer, inventing modern detective fiction and contributing to science fiction.
Library of Congress

Pioneering author, editor, poet, literary critic, husband, son...Edgar Allan Poe lived just to the age of 40 but his works continue to captivate readers around the globe today.

Edgar Allan Poe was born in Boston in 1809. Both of his parents were actors. His mother, the much admired Elizabeth Arnold Poe was a talented actress. His father, David Poe was considered less talented. The Poes performed at theaters throughout the Eastern seaboard, from Boston to Virginia. In 1811, Elizabeth Poe died of tuberculosis in Richmond, Virginia, leaving orphaned Edgar, his infant sister Rosalie, and his older brother Henry. David Poe, apparently had abandoned his wife and children earlier and was not present when she died.

The three children were separated and raised by different families. Edgar was taken in by the successful Richmond merchant John Allan, and his frail wife Frances. The Allans had no children of their own. They raised Edgar as part of the family and gave him their middle name, but never legally adopted him.

In 1815, Edgar traveled with the Allans to England and Scotland, where John Allan planned to expand his tobacco business. Edgar attended boarding schools throughout the five years the family lived overseas. After John Allan's business venture failed, he moved the family back to Richmond, Virginia in 1820.

From University of Virginia to West Point

Edgar continued his studies in Richmond. He entered the University of Virginia in 1826 at the age of 17. During the year he attended the university, Edgar excelled in his studies of Latin and French. He was unable to complete his studies at the university because Allan refused to pay debts Edgar had incurred during the school year. Allan and Edgar quarreled over the debts, of which a large portion was incurred from gambling.

Shortly after his quarrel with his foster father, Edgar Allan Poe left Richmond for Boston where he hoped to pursue a literary career. His first book of poetry, Tamerlane and Other Poems was published there. Unable to support himself, and receiving little assistance from his foster father, Poe enlisted as a private in the US Army on May 26, 1827 for a five year term. He entered under an assumed name and lied about his age, claiming to be 22 years old when he was only 18. Poe was assigned to Battery H of the First Artillery at Fort Independence in Boston Harbor. On October 31, 1827 Battery H was ordered to Fort Moultrie to protect Charleston Harbor. He sailed on the Brigantine Waltham, arriving for duty in Charleston on November 18.

At Fort Moultrie, Poe was promoted to artificer, the rank of a noncommissioned officer or enlisted man who had a mechanical specialty. On December 11, 1828, Poe's battery sailed for duty at Fortress Monroe, Virginia where he attained the rank of Sergeant-Major, the highest possible rank for a non-commissioned officer. His quick progress up the ranks can be attributed to his education, high social standing, and competence. Despite his accomplishments, Poe left military service in April 1829 and hired a substitute to complete his obligation.

A brief reconciliation between Poe and Allan occurred upon the death of Frances Allan in 1829. Allan assisted Poe in obtaining a discharge from the regular Army and an appointment as a cadet at the US Military Academy in West Point. Entering West Point in July 1830, Poe was again plagued by restlessness. One of his roommates described him as having "the appearance of being much older. He had a worn, weary, discontented look, not easily forgotten by those who were intimate with him." The financial hardship along with the realization that literature was his true vocation, led to Poe's decision to resign from the Academy. Allan, as Poe's guardian, refused to give him permission to resign. Unable to obtain permission to resign, Poe chose to neglect his duties and was court-martialed for "gross neglect of duty" and "disobedience of orders."

Editor and Author

After leaving West Point, Poe eventually moved to Baltimore where he lived with his impoverished Aunt Maria Poe Clemm and her young daughter, Virginia. Poe continued to write poetry and prose. In 1833, he won a $50 prize and attention for his short story "Ms. Found in a Bottle." The attention he gained led to a job offer as an editor for the Southern Literary Messenger in Richmond. Poe accepted the position and moved to Richmond in 1835. His aunt and cousin joined him the following year. Poe married his thirteen year old cousin, Virginia, shortly afterwards.

The Poes and Mrs. Clemm moved to New York City in 1837 with the hope of Edgar finding work in the literary field. The city, as well as the rest of the country was in the midst of a depression caused by the financial "Panic of '37." Unable to find work, Poe moved to Philadelphia in 1838. The six years he spent in Philadelphia proved to be his most productive, and perhaps the happiest years of his life. He worked as an editor and critic for one of the nation's largest magazines, Graham's Magazine. Some of his most famous stories were written in Philadelphia, including the "Fall of the House of Usher," "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," "The Mask of the Red Death," and "Ligeia." Poe referred to South Carolina settings in several short stories, including "The Balloon-Hoax" and "The Oblong Box." By far his most popular story inspired by Sullivan's Island was "The Gold Bug," originally published in 1843. In 1842, his beloved wife became ill with tuberculosis. Her illness and the constant strain of financial problems, caused Poe to sink into deep bouts of depression.

Professional and Personal Loss

The Poes and Mrs. Clemm moved to New York City in 1844. Poe continued to work as an editor and critic. He gained his greatest fame as a poet after his poem "The Raven" was published in 1845. In the same year, he achieved his lifelong dream of owning a literary journal. Unfortunately, the journal failed within a few months. The Poes and Mrs. Clemm moved outside of New York City to a small cottage in 1846. Virginia died of tuberculosis the following year.

Death

For the next two years Poe continued to write poetry, short stories, criticism and plan for his own literary journal. After a successful lecture tour in the South and an extended visit in Richmond, Poe seemed to be finally recovering from the loss of Virginia, and making plans for the future. On his way back to New York City, Poe stopped in Baltimore where he died of "acute congestion of the brain." The day was October 7, 1849; Edgar Allan Poe was 40 years old.

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Edgar Allan Poe (U.S. National Park Service)

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Despite financial hardships and family woes, Edgar Allan Poe published a wide range of works, including short stories, poetry, and literary criticism.

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MLA - Michals, Debra. "Phillis Wheatley." National Women's History Museum. National Women's History Museum, 2015. Date accessed.

Chicago - Michals, Debra. "Phillis Wheatley." National Women's History Museum. 2015. www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/phillis-wheatley.

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Despite spending much of her life enslaved, Phillis Wheatley was the first African American woman to publish a book of poems.

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Amanda Gorman is the youngest inaugural poet in U.S. history, as well as an award-winning writer and cum laude graduate of Harvard University, where she studied Sociology. She has written for the New York Times and has three books forthcoming with Penguin Random House.

Born and raised in Los Angeles, she began writing at only a few years of age. Now her words have won her invitations to the Obama White House and to perform for Lin-Manuel Miranda, Al Gore, Secretary Hillary Clinton, Malala Yousafzai, and others. Amanda has performed multiple commissioned poems for CBS This Morning and she has spoken at events and venues across the country, including the Library of Congress and Lincoln Center. She has received a Genius Grant from OZY Media, as well as recognition from Scholastic Inc., YoungArts, the Glamour magazine College Women of the Year Awards, and the Webby Awards. She has written for the New York Times newsletter The Edit and penned the manifesto for Nike's 2020 Black History Month campaign. In 2017, Amanda Gorman was appointed the first-ever National Youth Poet Laureate by Urban Word - a program that supports Youth Poets Laureate in more than 60 cities, regions and states nationally. She is the recipient of the Poets & Writers Barnes & Noble Writers for Writers Award, and is the youngest board member of 826 National, the largest youth writing network in the United States.

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Amanda Gorman is the youngest inaugural poet in U.S. history, as well as an award-winning writer and cum laude graduate of Harvard University, where she studied Sociology. She has written for the New York Times and has three books forthcoming with Penguin Random House.

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Teaching Tools | Resources for Teachers from Scholastic

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Who Was Robert Frost?

Robert Frost was an American poet and winner of four Pulitzer Prizes. Famous works include "Fire and Ice," "Mending Wall," "Birches," "Out Out," "Nothing Gold Can Stay" and "Home Burial." His 1916 poem, "The Road Not Taken," is often read at graduation ceremonies across the United States. As a special guest at President John F. Kennedy 's inauguration, Frost became a poetic force and the unofficial "poet laureate" of the United States.

Frost spent his first 40 years as an unknown. He exploded on the scene after returning from England at the beginning of World War I. He died of complications from prostate surgery on January 29, 1963.

Early Years

Frost was born on March 26, 1874, in San Francisco, California. He spent the first 11 years of his life there, until his journalist father, William Prescott Frost Jr., died of tuberculosis.

Following his father's passing, Frost moved with his mother and sister, Jeanie, to the town of Lawrence, Massachusetts. They moved in with his grandparents, and Frost attended Lawrence High School.

After high school, Frost attended Dartmouth College for several months, returning home to work a slew of unfulfilling jobs.

Beginning in 1897, Frost attended Harvard University but had to drop out after two years due to health concerns. He returned to Lawrence to join his wife.

In 1900, Frost moved with his wife and children to a farm in New Hampshire - property that Frost's grandfather had purchased for them-and they attempted to make a life on it for the next 12 years. Though it was a fruitful time for Frost's writing, it was a difficult period in his personal life and followed the deaths of two of his young children.

During that time, Frost and Elinor attempted several endeavors, including poultry farming, all of which were fairly unsuccessful.

Despite such challenges, it was during this time that Frost acclimated himself to rural life. In fact, he grew to depict it quite well, and began setting many of his poems in the countryside.

Wife

Frost met his future love and wife, Elinor White, when they were both attending Lawrence High School. She was his co-valedictorian when they graduated in 1892.

In 1894, Frost proposed to White, who was attending St. Lawrence University, but she turned him down because she first wanted to finish school. Frost then decided to leave on a trip to Virginia, and when he returned, he proposed again. By then, White had graduated from college, and she accepted. They married on December 19, 1895.

White died in 1938. Diagnosed with cancer in 1937 and having undergone surgery, she also had had a long history of heart trouble, to which she ultimately succumbed.

Children

Frost and White had six children together. Their first child, Elliot, was born in 1896. Daughter Lesley was born in 1899.

Elliot died of cholera in 1900. After his death, Elinor gave birth to four more children: son Carol (1902), who would commit suicide in 1940; Irma (1903), who later developed mental illness; Marjorie (1905), who died in her late 20s after giving birth; and Elinor (1907), who died just weeks after she was born.

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Early Poetry

In 1894, Frost had his first poem, "My Butterfly: an Elegy," published in The Independent, a weekly literary journal based in New York City.

Two poems, "The Tuft of Flowers" and "The Trial by Existence," were published in 1906. He could not find any publishers who were willing to underwrite his other poems.

In 1912, Frost and Elinor decided to sell the farm in New Hampshire and move the family to England, where they hoped there would be more publishers willing to take a chance on new poets.

Within just a few months, Frost, now 38, found a publisher who would print his first book of poems, A Boy's Will, followed by North of Boston a year later.

It was at this time that Frost met fellow poets Ezra Pound and Edward Thomas, two men who would affect his life in significant ways. Pound and Thomas were the first to review his work in a favorable light, as well as provide significant encouragement. Frost credited Thomas's long walks over the English landscape as the inspiration for one of his most famous poems, "The Road Not Taken."

Apparently, Thomas's indecision and regret regarding what paths to take inspired Frost's work. The time Frost spent in England was one of the most significant periods in his life, but it was short-lived. Shortly after World War I broke out in August 1914, Frost and Elinor were forced to return to America.

Public Recognition for Frost's Poetry

When Frost arrived back in America, his reputation had preceded him, and he was well-received by the literary world. His new publisher, Henry Holt, who would remain with him for the rest of his life, had purchased all of the copies of North of Boston. In 1916, he published Frost's Mountain Interval, a collection of other works that he created while in England, including a tribute to Thomas.

Journals such as the Atlantic Monthly, who had turned Frost down when he submitted work earlier, now came calling. Frost famously sent the Atlantic the same poems that they had rejected before his stay in England.

In 1915, Frost and Elinor settled down on a farm that they purchased in Franconia, New Hampshire. There, Frost began a long career as a teacher at several colleges, reciting poetry to eager crowds and writing all the while.

He taught at Dartmouth and the University of Michigan at various times, but his most significant association was with Amherst College, where he taught steadily during the period from 1916 until his wife's death in 1938. The main library is now named in his honor.

For a period of more than 40 years beginning in 1921, Frost also spent almost every summer and fall at Middlebury College, teaching English on its campus in Ripton, Vermont.

In the late 1950s, Frost, along with Ernest Hemingway and T. S. Eliot, championed the release of his old acquaintance Ezra Pound, who was being held in a federal mental hospital for treason due to his involvement with fascists in Italy during World War II. Pound was released in 1958, after the indictments were dropped.

Famous Poems

Some of Frost's most well-known poems include:

"The Road Not Taken"

"Birches"

"Fire and Ice"

"Mending Wall"

"Home Burial"

"The Death of the Hired Man"

"Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening"

"Acquainted with the Night"

"Out, Out"

"Nothing Gold Can Stay"

Pulitzer Prizes and Awards

During his lifetime, Frost received more than 40 honorary degrees.

In 1924, Frost was awarded his first of four Pulitzer Prizes, for his book New Hampshire. He would subsequently win Pulitzers for Collected Poems (1931), A Further Range (1937) and A Witness Tree (1943).

In 1960, Congress awarded Frost the Congressional Gold Medal.

Photo: George Silk/The LIFE Picture Collection via Getty Images/Getty Images

President John F. Kennedy's Inauguration

At the age of 86, Frost was honored when asked to write and recite a poem for President John F. Kennedy's 1961 inauguration. His sight now failing, he was not able to see the words in the sunlight and substituted the reading of one of his poems, "The Gift Outright," which he had committed to memory.

Soviet Union Tour

In 1962, Frost visited the Soviet Union on a goodwill tour. However, when he accidentally misrepresented a statement made by Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev following their meeting, he unwittingly undid much of the good intended by his visit.

Death

On January 29, 1963, Frost died from complications related to prostate surgery. He was survived by two of his daughters, Lesley and Irma. His ashes are interred in a family plot in Bennington, Vermont.

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Robert Frost was an American poet and winner of four Pulitzer Prizes. Famous works include "Fire and Ice," "Mending Wall," "Birches," "Out Out," "Nothing Gold Can Stay" and "Home Burial." His 1916 poem, "The Road Not Taken," is often read at graduation ceremonies across the United States.

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Calm your tell-tale heart: This movie about macabre author Edgar Allan Poe isn’t nearly as frightening as his tales!

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Although she was an enslaved person, Phillis Wheatley Peters was one of the best-known poets in pre-19th century America. Educated and enslaved in the household of prominent Boston commercialist John Wheatley, lionized in New England and England, with presses in both places publishing her poems, and paraded before the new republic's political leadership and the old empire's aristocracy, Wheatley was the abolitionists' illustrative testimony that blacks could be both artistic and intellectual. Her name was a household word among literate colonists and her achievements a catalyst for the fledgling antislavery movement.

Wheatley was seized from Senegal/Gambia, West Africa, when she was about seven years old. She was transported to the Boston docks with a shipment of "refugee" slaves, who because of age or physical frailty were unsuited for rigorous labor in the West Indian and Southern colonies, the first ports of call after the Atlantic crossing. In the month of August 1761, "in want of a domestic," Susanna Wheatley, wife of prominent Boston tailor John Wheatley, purchased "a slender, frail female child ... for a trifle" because the captain of the slave ship believed that the waif was terminally ill, and he wanted to gain at least a small profit before she died. A Wheatley relative later reported that the family surmised the girl-who was "of slender frame and evidently suffering from a change of climate," nearly naked, with "no other covering than a quantity of dirty carpet about her"-to be "about seven years old ... from the circumstances of shedding her front teeth."

After discovering the girl's precociousness, the Wheatleys, including their son Nathaniel and their daughter Mary, did not entirely excuse Wheatley from her domestic duties but taught her to read and write. Soon she was immersed in the Bible, astronomy, geography, history, British literature (particularly John Milton and Alexander Pope), and the Greek and Latin classics of Virgil, Ovid, Terence, and Homer. In "To the University of Cambridge in New England" (probably the first poem she wrote but not published until 1773), Wheatley indicated that despite this exposure, rich and unusual for an American slave, her spirit yearned for the intellectual challenge of a more academic atmosphere.

Although scholars had generally believed that An Elegiac Poem, on the Death of that Celebrated Divine, and Eminent Servant of Jesus Christ, the Reverend and Learned George Whitefield ... (1770) was Wheatley's first published poem, Carl Bridenbaugh revealed in 1969 that 13-year-old Wheatley-after hearing a miraculous saga of survival at sea-wrote "On Messrs. Hussey and Coffin," a poem which was published on 21 December 1767 in the Newport, Rhode Island, Mercury. But it was the Whitefield elegy that brought Wheatley national renown. Published as a broadside and a pamphlet in Boston, Newport, and Philadelphia, the poem was published with Ebenezer Pemberton's funeral sermon for Whitefield in London in 1771, bringing her international acclaim.

By the time she was 18, Wheatley had gathered a collection of 28 poems for which she, with the help of Mrs. Wheatley, ran advertisements for subscribers in Boston newspapers in February 1772. When the colonists were apparently unwilling to support literature by an African, she and the Wheatleys turned in frustration to London for a publisher. Wheatley had forwarded the Whitefield poem to Selina Hastings, Countess of Huntingdon, to whom Whitefield had been chaplain. A wealthy supporter of evangelical and abolitionist causes, the countess instructed bookseller Archibald Bell to begin correspondence with Wheatley in preparation for the book.

Wheatley, suffering from a chronic asthma condition and accompanied by Nathaniel, left for London on May 8, 1771. The now-celebrated poetess was welcomed by several dignitaries: abolitionists' patron the Earl of Dartmouth, poet and activist Baron George Lyttleton, Sir Brook Watson (soon to be the Lord Mayor of London), philanthropist John Thorton, and Benjamin Franklin. While Wheatley was recrossing the Atlantic to reach Mrs. Wheatley, who, at the summer's end, had become seriously ill, Bell was circulating the first edition of Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral (1773), the first volume of poetry by an African American published in modern times.

Poems on Various Subjects revealed that Wheatley's favorite poetic form was the couplet, both iambic pentameter and heroic. More than one-third of her canon is composed of elegies, poems on the deaths of noted persons, friends, or even strangers whose loved ones employed the poet. The poems that best demonstrate her abilities and are most often questioned by detractors are those that employ classical themes as well as techniques. In her epyllion "Niobe in Distress for Her Children Slain by Apollo, from Ovid's Metamorphoses, Book VI, and from a view of the Painting of Mr. Richard Wilson," she not only translates Ovid but adds her own beautiful lines to extend the dramatic imagery. In "To Maecenas" she transforms Horace's ode into a celebration of Christ.

In addition to classical and neoclassical techniques, Wheatley applied biblical symbolism to evangelize and to comment on slavery. For instance, " On Being Brought from Africa to America," the best-known Wheatley poem, chides the Great Awakening audience to remember that Africans must be included in the Christian stream: "Remember, Christians, Negroes, black as Cain, /May be refin'd and join th' angelic train." The remainder of Wheatley's themes can be classified as celebrations of America. She was the first to applaud this nation as glorious "Columbia" and that in a letter to no less than the first president of the United States, George Washington, with whom she had corresponded and whom she was later privileged to meet. Her love of virgin America as well as her religious fervor is further suggested by the names of those colonial leaders who signed the attestation that appeared in some copies of Poems on Various Subjects to authenticate and support her work: Thomas Hutchinson, governor of Massachusetts; John Hancock; Andrew Oliver, lieutenant governor; James Bowdoin; and Reverend Mather Byles. Another fervent Wheatley supporter was Dr. Benjamin Rush, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence.

Wheatley was manumitted some three months before Mrs. Wheatley died on March 3, 1774. Although many British editorials castigated the Wheatleys for keeping Wheatley in slavery while presenting her to London as the African genius, the family had provided an ambiguous haven for the poet. Wheatley was kept in a servant's place-a respectable arm's length from the Wheatleys' genteel circles-but she had experienced neither slavery's treacherous demands nor the harsh economic exclusions pervasive in a free-black existence. With the death of her benefactor, Wheatley slipped toward this tenuous life. Mary Wheatley and her father died in 1778; Nathaniel, who had married and moved to England, died in 1783. Throughout the lean years of the war and the following depression, the assault of these racial realities was more than her sickly body or aesthetic soul could withstand.

On April 1, 1778, despite the skepticism and disapproval of some of her closest friends, Wheatley married John Peters, whom she had known for some five years, and took his name. A free black, Peters evidently aspired to entrepreneurial and professional greatness. He is purported in various historical records to have called himself Dr. Peters, to have practiced law (perhaps as a free-lance advocate for hapless blacks), kept a grocery in Court Street, exchanged trade as a baker and a barber, and applied for a liquor license for a bar. Described by Merle A. Richmond as "a man of very handsome person and manners," who "wore a wig, carried a cane, and quite acted out 'the gentleman,'" Peters was also called "a remarkable specimen of his race, being a fluent writer, a ready speaker." Peters's ambitions cast him as "shiftless," arrogant, and proud in the eyes of some reporters, but as a Black man in an era that valued only his brawn, Peters's business acumen was simply not salable. Like many others who scattered throughout the Northeast to avoid the fighting during the Revolutionary War, the Peterses moved temporarily from Boston to Wilmington, Massachusetts, shortly after their marriage.

Merle A. Richmond points out that economic conditions in the colonies during and after the war were harsh, particularly for free blacks, who were unprepared to compete with whites in a stringent job market. These societal factors, rather than any refusal to work on Peters's part, were perhaps most responsible for the newfound poverty that Wheatley Peters suffered in Wilmington and Boston, after they later returned there. Between 1779 and 1783, the couple may have had children (as many as three, though evidence of children is disputed), and Peters drifted further into penury, often leaving Wheatley Peters to fend for herself by working as a charwoman while he dodged creditors and tried to find employment.

During the first six weeks after their return to Boston, Wheatley Peters stayed with one of her nieces in a bombed-out mansion that was converted to a day school after the war. Peters then moved them into an apartment in a rundown section of Boston, where other Wheatley relatives soon found Wheatley Peters sick and destitute. As Margaretta Matilda Odell recalls, "She was herself suffering for want of attention, for many comforts, and that greatest of all comforts in sickness-cleanliness. She was reduced to a condition too loathsome to describe. ... In a filthy apartment, in an obscure part of the metropolis ... . The woman who had stood honored and respected in the presence of the wise and good ... was numbering the last hours of life in a state of the most abject misery, surrounded by all the emblems of a squalid poverty!"

Yet throughout these lean years, Wheatley Peters continued to write and publish her poems and to maintain, though on a much more limited scale, her international correspondence. She also felt that despite the poor economy, her American audience and certainly her evangelical friends would support a second volume of poetry. Between October and December 1779, with at least the partial motive of raising funds for her family, she ran six advertisements soliciting subscribers for "300 pages in Octavo," a volume "Dedicated to the Right Hon. Benjamin Franklin, Esq.: One of the Ambassadors of the United States at the Court of France," that would include 33 poems and 13 letters. As with Poems on Various Subjects, however, the American populace would not support one of its most noted poets. (The first American edition of this book was not published until two years after her death.) During the year of her death (1784), she was able to publish, under the name Phillis Peters, a masterful 64-line poem in a pamphlet entitled Liberty and Peace, which hailed America as "Columbia" victorious over "Britannia Law." Proud of her nation's intense struggle for freedom that, to her, bespoke an eternal spiritual greatness, Wheatley Peters ended the poem with a triumphant ring:

Britannia owns her Independent Reign,
Hibernia, Scotia, and the Realms of Spain;
And Great Germania's ample Coast admires
The generous Spirit that Columbia fires.
Auspicious Heaven shall fill with fav'ring Gales,
Where e'er Columbia spreads her swelling Sails:
To every Realm shall Peace her Charms display,
And Heavenly Freedom spread her gold Ray.

On January 2 of that same year, she published An Elegy, Sacred to the Memory of that Great Divine, The Reverend and Learned Dr. Samuel Cooper, just a few days after the death of the Brattle Street church's pastor. And, sadly, in September the "Poetical Essays" section of The Boston Magazine carried "To Mr. and Mrs.________, on the Death of their Infant Son," which probably was a lamentation for the death of one of her own children and which certainly foreshadowed her death three months later."

Phillis Wheatley Peters died, uncared for and alone. As Richmond concludes, with ample evidence, when she died on December 5, 1784, John Peters was incarcerated, "forced to relieve himself of debt by an imprisonment in the county jail." Their last surviving child died in time to be buried with his mother, and, as Odell recalled, "A grandniece of Phillis' benefactress, passing up Court Street, met the funeral of an adult and a child: a bystander informed her that they were bearing Phillis Wheatley to that silent mansion."

Recent scholarship shows that Wheatley Peters wrote perhaps 145 poems (most of which would have been published if the encouragers she begged for had come forth to support the second volume), but this artistic heritage is now lost, probably abandoned during Peters's quest for subsistence after her death. Of the numerous letters she wrote to national and international political and religious leaders, some two dozen notes and letters are extant. As an exhibition of African intelligence, exploitable by members of the enlightenment movement, by evangelical Christians, and by other abolitionists, she was perhaps recognized even more in England and Europe than in America. Early 20th-century critics of Black American literature were not very kind to Wheatley Peters because of her supposed lack of concern about slavery. She, however, did have a statement to make about the institution of slavery, and she made it to the most influential segment of 18th-century society-the institutional church. Two of the greatest influences on Phillis Wheatley Peter's thought and poetry were the Bible and 18th-century evangelical Christianity; but until fairly recently her critics did not consider her use of biblical allusion nor its symbolic application as a statement against slavery. She often spoke in explicit biblical language designed to move church members to decisive action. For instance, these bold lines in her poetic eulogy to General David Wooster castigate patriots who confess Christianity yet oppress her people:

But how presumptuous shall we hope to find
Divine acceptance with the Almighty mind
While yet o deed ungenerous they disgrace
And hold in bondage Afric: blameless race
Let virtue reign and then accord our prayers
Be victory ours and generous freedom theirs.

And in an outspoken letter to the Reverend Samson Occom, written after Wheatley Peters was free and published repeatedly in Boston newspapers in 1774, she equates American slaveholding to that of pagan Egypt in ancient times: "Otherwise, perhaps, the Israelites had been less solicitous for their Freedom from Egyptian Slavery: I don't say they would have been contented without it, by no Means, for in every human Breast, God has implanted a Principle, which we call Love of freedom; it is impatient of Oppression, and pants for Deliverance; and by the Leave of our modern Egyptians I will assert that the same Principle lives in us."

In the past decade, Wheatley scholars have uncovered poems, letters, and more facts about her life and her association with 18th-century Black abolitionists. They have also charted her notable use of classicism and have explicated the sociological intent of her biblical allusions. All this research and interpretation has proven Wheatley Peter's disdain for the institution of slavery and her use of art to undermine its practice. Before the end of this century the full aesthetic, political, and religious implications of her art and even more salient facts about her life and works will surely be known and celebrated by all who study the 18th century and by all who revere this woman, a most important poet in the American literary canon. -Original by Sondra A. O'Neale, Emory University

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Although she was an enslaved person, Phillis Wheatley Peters was one of the best-known poets in pre-19th century America. Educated and enslaved in the household of prominent Boston commercialist John Wheatley, lionized in New England and England, with presses in both places publishing her poems,...

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Change Sings by Amanda Gorman & Loren Long: An Interactive Read Aloud Book for Kids

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Amanda Gorman: Meet The First African-American Youth Poet Laureate | TODAY

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Robert Frost was born on March 26, 1874, in San Francisco, where his father, William Prescott Frost, Jr., and his mother, Isabelle Moodie, had moved from Pennsylvania shortly after marrying. After the death of his father from tuberculosis when Frost was eleven years old, he moved with his mother and sister, Jeanie, who was two years younger, to Lawrence, Massachusetts. He became interested in reading and writing poetry during his high school years in Lawrence, enrolled at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire in 1892 and, later, at Harvard University, though he never earned a formal degree.

Frost drifted through a string of occupations after leaving school, working as a teacher, cobbler, and editor of the Lawrence Sentinel. His first published poem, "My Butterfly," appeared on November 8, 1894 in the New York newspaper The Independent.

In 1895, Frost married Elinor Miriam White, with whom he'd shared valedictorian honors in high school, and who was a major inspiration for his poetry until her death in 1938. The couple moved to England in 1912, after they tried and failed at farming in New Hampshire. It was abroad where Frost met and was influenced by such contemporary British poets as Edward Thomas, Rupert Brooke, and Robert Graves. While in England, Frost also established a friendship with the poet Ezra Pound, who helped to promote and publish his work.

By the time Frost returned to the United States in 1915, he had published two full-length collections, A Boy's Will (Henry Holt and Company, 1913) and North of Boston (Henry Holt and Company, 1914), thereby establishing his reputation. By the 1920s, he was the most celebrated poet in America, and with each new book-including New Hampshire (Henry Holt and Company, 1923), A Further Range (Henry Holt and Company, 1936), Steeple Bush (Henry Holt and Company, 1947), and In the Clearing (Holt Rinehart & Winston, 1962)-his fame and honors, including four Pulitzer Prizes, increased. Frost served as a consultant in poetry to the Library of Congress from 1958-59. In 1962, he was presented the Congressional Gold Medal.

Though Frost's work is principally associated with the life and landscape of New England-and, though he was a poet of traditional verse forms and metrics who remained steadfastly aloof from the poetic movements and fashions of his time-Frost is anything but merely a regional poet. The author of searching, and often dark, meditations on universal themes, he is a quintessentially modern poet in his adherence to language as it is actually spoken, in the psychological complexity of his portraits, and in the degree to which his work is infused with layers of ambiguity and irony.

In a 1970 review of The Poetry of Robert Frost, the poet Daniel Hoffman describes Frost's early work as "the Puritan ethic turned astonishingly lyrical and enabled to say out loud the sources of its own delight in the world," and comments on Frost's career as the "American Bard": "He became a national celebrity, our nearly official poet laureate, and a great performer in the tradition of that earlier master of the literary vernacular, Mark Twain."

President John F. Kennedy, at whose inauguration Frost delivered a poem, said of the poet, "He has bequeathed his nation a body of imperishable verse from which Americans will forever gain joy and understanding." And famously, "He saw poetry as the means of saving power from itself. When power leads man towards arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations. When power narrows the areas of man's concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of his existence. When power corrupts, poetry cleanses."

Robert Frost lived and taught for many years in Massachusetts and Vermont, and died in Boston on January 29, 1963.

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Read more about William Carlos Williams >

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One of the most celebrated figures in American poetry, Robert Frost was the author of numerous poetry collections, including New Hampshire (Henry Holt and Company, 1923). Born in San Francisco in 1874, he lived and taught for many years in Massachusetts and Vermont. He died in Boston in 1963.

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Phillis Wheatley Peters was born in West Africa in 1753. At the age of eight, she was kidnapped, enslaved in New England, and sold to John Wheatley of Boston. The first African-American and one of the first women to publish a book of poetry in the colonies, Wheatley learned to read and write English by the age of nine, familiarizing herself with Latin, Greek, the Bible, and selected classics at an early age. She began writing poetry at thirteen, modeling her work on the English poets of the time, particularly John Milton, Thomas Gray, and Alexander Pope. Her poem "On the Death of the Rev. Mr. George Whitefield" was published as a broadside in cities such as Boston, New York, and Philadelphia and garnered Wheatley national acclaim. This poem was also printed in London. Over the next few years, she would print a number of broadsides elegizing prominent English and colonial leaders.

In 1771, Wheatley accompanied John Wheatley's son, Nathaniel, to London. She was well received in London and wrote to a friend of the "unexpected and unmerited civility and complaisance with which I was treated by all." In 1773, thirty-nine of her poems were published in London as Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral, which became the first book of poetry published by an enslaved African-American in the United States. The book includes many elegies as well as poems on Christian themes; it also includes poems dealing with race, such as the often-anthologized "On Being Brought from Africa to America." She returned to America in 1773.

After the elder Wheatleys died, Phillis was left to support herself as a seamstress and poet. It is unclear precisely when Wheatley was freed from slavery, although scholars suggest it occurred between 1774 and 1778. In 1776, Wheatley wrote a letter and poem in support of George Washington, who replied with an invitation to visit him in Cambridge, stating that he would be "happy to see a person so favored by the muses." In 1778, she married John Peters, who kept a grocery store. They had three children together, all of whom died young. Wheatley experienced difficulty publishing her poems, soliciting subscribers for a new volume that would include thirty-three new poems and thirteen letters, but unable to raise the funds. Phillis Wheatley, who had once been internationally celebrated, died alone in a boarding house on December 5, 1784. She was thirty-one years old. Many of the poems for her proposed second volume disappeared and have never been recovered.

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Phillis Wheatley Peters was born in West Africa in 1753. At the age of eight, she was kidnapped, enslaved in New England, and sold to John Wheatley of Boston.

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National Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman Recites Poem At Biden Inauguration | MSNBC

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Robert Lee Frost [1874-1963] was born in San Francisco on 26 March 1874. His parents William Prescott Frost and Isabel Moodie met when they were both working as teachers. Robert was the eldest of their two children. Jeanie was his sister. In 1885 following the death of his father, the family moved in with his grandfather in Lawrence Massachusetts.

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One of America's early literary giants, was an enslaved woman from Massachusetts, Phillis Wheatley. Born in West Africa, Wheatley was captured and sold into slavery as a child.

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Amanda Gorman marked her space in the history books as the youngest known inaugural poet when she took the stage to a new work titled "The Hill We Climb."

Gorman, 22, wrote the piece after January 6th's attack on the Capitol.

"In my poem, I'm not going to in any way gloss over what we've seen over the past few weeks and, dare I say, the past few years," Gorman said in an interview with the New York Times. "But what I really aspire to do in the poem is to be able to use my words to envision a way in which our country can still come together and can still heal."

Born in Los Angeles in 1998, she became Los Angeles' youth poet laureate at 16. While at Harvard studying sociology three years later, she was named the first national youth poet laureate.

Gorman joined Maya Angelou and Robert Frost as individuals invited to honor a presidential inauguration.

Like Angelou and President Biden, Gorman struggles with a speech impediment.

"It's made me the performer that I am and the storyteller that I strive to be," Gorman told The LA Times. "When you have to teach yourself how to say sounds, when you have to be highly concerned about pronunciation, it gives you a certain awareness of sonics, of the auditory experience."

If "The Hill We Climb" left you wanting more, here are five more poems from Amanda Gorman that inspire:
'Earthrise' 'Making Mountains As We Run' 'Talking Gets Us There' 'An American Lyric' Related Video:

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5 more poems from Amanda Gorman to share with your kids

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Amanda Gorman marked her space in the history books as the youngest known inaugural poet when she took the stage to a new work titled "The Hill We Climb." Gorman, 22, wrote the piece after January 6th's attack on the Capitol.

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Jacqueline Woodson was born in Columbus, Ohio and grew up in Greenville, South Carolina and Brooklyn, New York. She is the author of over 30 books for children and adults, including From the Notebooks of Melanin Sun (1995), recipient of both the Coretta Scott King Honor and the Jane Addams…

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Theodor Seuss Geisel, better known under his pseudonym "Dr. Seuss," was "probably the best-loved and certainly the best-selling children's book writer of all time," wrote Robert Wilson of the New York Times Book Review. Geisel entertained several generations of young readers with his zany nonsense books. Speaking to Herbert Kupferberg of Parade, Geisel once claimed: "Old men on crutches tell me, 'I've been brought up on your books.'" His "rhythmic verse rivals Lewis Carroll's," stated Stefan Kanfer in Time, "and his freestyle drawing recalls the loony sketches of Edward Lear." Because of his work in publishing books for young readers and for the many innovative children's classics he wrote himself, during the second half of the twentieth century Geisel "had a tremendous impact on children's reading habits and the way reading is taught and approached in the school system," declared Miles Corwin of the Los Angeles Times.

Geisel had originally intended to become a professor of English, but soon "became frustrated when he was shunted into a particularly insignificant field of research," reported Myra Kibler in the Dictionary of Literary Biography. After leaving graduate school in 1926, Geisel worked for a number of years as a freelance magazine cartoonist, selling cartoons and humorous prose pieces to the major humor magazines of the 1920s and 1930s. Many of these works are collected in The Tough Coughs As He Ploughs the Dough. One of Geisel's cartoons-about "Flit," a spray-can pesticide-attracted the attention of the Standard Oil Company, manufacturers of the product. In 1928 they hired Geisel to draw their magazine advertising art and, for the next fifteen years, he created grotesque, enormous insects to illustrate the famous slogan "Quick, Henry! The Flit!" He also created monsters for the motor oil division of Standard Oil, including the Moto-Raspus, the Moto-Munchus, and the Karbo-Nockus, that, said Kibler, are precursors of his later fantastic creatures.

It was quite by chance that Geisel began writing for children. Returning from Europe by boat in 1936, he amused himself by putting together a nonsense poem to the rhythm of the ship's engine. Later he drew pictures to illustrate the rhyme and in 1937 published the result as And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street, his first children's book. Set in Geisel's home town of Springfield, Massachusetts, And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street is the story of a boy whose imagination transforms a simple horse-drawn wagon into a marvelous and exotic parade of strange creatures and vehicles. Many critics regard it as Geisel's best work.

And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street, along with The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins, Horton Hatches the Egg, and McElligot's Pool, introduces many of the elements for which Geisel became famous. Mulberry Street features rollicking anapestic tetrameter verse that complements the author's boisterous illustrations. Jonathan Cott, writing in Pipers at the Gates of Dawn: The Wisdom of Children's Literature, declared that "the unflagging momentum, feeling of breathlessness, and swiftness of pace, all together [act] as the motor for Dr. Seuss's pullulating image machine." Whimsical fantasy characterizes The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins, while Horton Hatches the Egg introduces an element of morality and McElligot's Pool marks the first appearance of the fantasy animal characters for which Geisel became famous.

The outbreak of World War II forced Geisel to give up writing for children temporarily and to devote his talents to the war effort. Working with the Information and Education Division of the U.S. Army, he made documentary films for American soldiers. One of these army films- Hitler Lives-won an Academy Award, a feat Geisel repeated with his documentary about the Japanese war effort, Design for Death, and the UPA cartoon Gerald McBoing-Boing, about a little boy who can only speak in sound effects. The screenplay for the film The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T, which Geisel wrote with Allen Scott, achieved cult status during the 1960s among music students on college campuses. Later, Geisel adapted several of his books into animated television specials, the most famous of which- How the Grinch Stole Christmas-has become a holiday favorite.

The success of his early books confirmed Geisel as an important new children's writer. However, it was The Cat in the Hat that solidified his reputation and revolutionized the world of children's book publishing. By using a limited number of different words, all simple enough for very young children to read, and through its wildly iconoclastic plot-when two children are alone at home on a rainy day, the Cat in the Hat arrives to entertain them, wrecking their house in the process- The Cat in the Hat provided an attractive alternative to the simplistic "Dick and Jane" primers then in use in American schools, and critics applauded its appearance. Helen Adams Masten in the Saturday Review marveled at the way Geisel, using "only 223 different words, . . . has created a story in rhyme which presents an impelling incentive to read." The enthusiastic reception of The Cat in the Hat led Geisel to found Beginner Books, a publishing company specializing in easy-to-read books for children. In 1960 Random House acquired the company and made Geisel president of the Beginner Books division.

Geisel and Beginner Books created many modern classics for children, from Green Eggs and Ham, about the need to try new experiences, and Fox in Socks, a series of increasingly boisterous tongue-twisters, to The Lorax, about environmental preservation, and The Butter Battle Book, a fable based on the nuclear arms race. In 1986, at the age of eighty-two, Geisel produced his most uncharacteristic book, You're Only Old Once, a work geared for the "obsolete children" of the world. The story follows an elderly gentleman's examination at "The Golden Age Clinic on Century Square," where he has gone for "Spleen Readjustment and Muffler Repair." The gentleman, who is never named, is subjected to a number of seemingly pointless tests by merciless physicians and grim nurses, ranging from a diet machine that rejects any appealing foods to an enormous eye chart that asks, "Have you any idea how much these tests are costing you?" Finally, the patient is dismissed, the doctors telling him: "You're in pretty good shape / For the shape that you're in!"

In its cheerful conclusion You're Only Old Once is typically Geisel. "The other ending is unacceptable," the author confided to New York Times Book Review contributor David W. Dunlap. In other ways, however, the book is very different in that it is much more autobiographical than any of his other stories. Robin Marantz Henig, writing in the Washington Post Book World, called You're Only Old Once "lighthearted, silly, but with an undertone of complaint. Being old is sometimes tough, isn't it . . . Seuss seems to be saying." Los Angeles Times Book Review contributor Jack Smith declared that in the book Geisel "reveals himself as human and old, and full of aches and pains and alarming symptoms, and frightened of the world of geriatric medicine, with its endless tests, overzealous doctors, intimidating nurses, Rube Goldberg machines and demoralizing paperwork." Nonetheless, Henig concluded, "We should all be lucky enough to get old the way this man, and Dr. Seuss himself, has gotten old."

In 2004, Random House began a yearlong celebration in honor of the one hundredth anniversary of Geisel's birth. Having sold more books for Random House than any other author, Geisel was also depicted on a stamp issued by the U.S. Postal Service. The celebration included one hundred days of events in memory of Geisel held in forty cities throughout the United States. Events included live theatrical performances, readings of his works, costume character appearances, and interactive workshops. "The celebration encompasses his life as a whole and not just him as a children's book illustrator," Random House executive Judith Haut told Joy Bean in Publishers Weekly. "He revolutionized how children learned to read, and so we knew the celebration had to equal the passion people have for his books."

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Theodor Geisel (Dr. Seuss) | Poetry Foundation

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Theodor Seuss Geisel, better known under his pseudonym "Dr. Seuss," was "probably the best-loved and certainly the best-selling children's book writer of all time," wrote Robert Wilson of the New York Times Book Review. Geisel entertained several generations of young readers with his zany nonsense...

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The author Theodor Seuss Geisel is better known to readers as Dr. Seuss. He wrote nearly 50 books for children. His stories are famous for their nonsense words, wild rhymes, and amusing drawings of unusual creatures.

Geisel was born on March 2, 1904, in Springfield, Massachusetts. He graduated from Dartmouth College in New Hampshire in 1925. Then he studied at Oxford University in England and the Sorbonne, a college in France. After that he worked as an illustrator and cartoonist.

During and after World War II (1939-45) Geisel served in a part of the U.S. Army that made informational films. Two films he made during the war won Academy awards.

Geisel's first children's book, And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street, was published in 1937. He wrote it under the name Dr. Seuss. His most famous books include Horton Hears a Who (1954), How the Grinch Stole Christmas (1957), The Cat in the Hat (1957), Green Eggs and Ham (1960), The Lorax (1971), and Oh, the Places You'll Go! (1990). Geisel both wrote the stories and drew the pictures for his books.

In the late 1950s Geisel started a company called Beginner Books, which produced books for children. Geisel died on September 24, 1991, in La Jolla, California.

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The author Theodor Seuss Geisel is better known to readers as Dr. Seuss. He wrote nearly 50 books for children. His stories are famous for their nonsense words, wild rhymes, and amusing drawings of unusual creatures. Geisel was born on March 2, 1904, in Springfield, Massachusetts.

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Author | Speaker | Producer | Poet | Kwame Alexander

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Kwame Alexander is a poet, educator, producer and #1 New York Times Bestselling author of 38 books, including AN AMERICAN STORY, THE DOOR OF NO RETURN, BECOMING MUHAMMAD ALI

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Kwame Alexander, an award-winning poet and author, writes picture books for children and cross-genre books for teens. The Crossover - his basketball-concrete poetry-hiphop mashup - was awarded the 2015 Newbery Medal. Alexander is also the creator of the in-school Book-in-a-Day writing and publishing workshop.

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Jacqueline Woodson writes picture books (The Other Side) as well as books for middle graders (Locomotion) and young adults (Hush). She tackles tough issues head-on: race relations, foster care, and incarceration are just some of the issues that her characters confront.

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Shel Silverstein was born on September 25, 1930, in Chicago and began writing and drawing at a young age.

Silverstein is best known as the author of iconic books of prose and poetry for young readers. His works include such modern classics as A Light in the Attic (HarperCollins, 1981), recipient of the School Library Journal Best Books Award in 1982; Where the Sidewalk Ends (Harper & Row, 1974), a 1974 Michigan Young Readers Award winner; and The Giving Tree (Harper & Row, 1964). Runny Babbit (HarperCollins, 2005), a posthumous poetry collection of spoonerisms, was conceived and completed before his death.

A cartoonist, playwright, poet, performer, and recording artist, Silverstein was also a Grammy-winning and Oscar-nominated songwriter. His books, which he also illustrated, are characterized by a deft mixing of the sly and the serious, the macabre and the silly. His unique imagination and bold brand of humor is beloved by countless adults and children throughout the world.

Silverstein died in Key West, Florida, on May 10, 1999.

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Shel Silverstein - Poet, cartoonist, playwright, performer, recording artist, and songwriter Shel Silverstein is best known as the award-winning author of iconic books of prose and poetry for young readers.

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(1809-49). Edgar Allan Poe is considered one of America's greatest writers. He is said to have invented the modern detective story. His works are full of suspense, as his...

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Fresberg Cartoon – Learning & History for Students

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Phillis Wheatley: Trailblazer and Inspiration | Biography

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On January 20, 2021, Amanda Gorman stood up to speak. She was at the U.S. Capitol building, in Washington, D.C. She was surrounded by leaders. More than 33 million people were watching on television. Gorman had been chosen to deliver a poem at the inauguration of President Joe Biden. She was 22. Gorman is the youngest poet in U.S. history to read at a presidential inauguration. She read a poem called "The Hill We Climb." It's about diversity and hope.

ROB CARR-GETTY IMAGES

A Way with Words

Gorman started writing poetry in grade school. "When other kids were playing, I was always scribbling away in my notebook," she told TIME for Kids. As a child, Gorman had a speech impediment. She had trouble saying some words. Poetry helped. "It allowed me to express myself," she says. Gorman practiced reading her poems aloud. This improved her speech. "It gave me a tool to help overcome my disability and turned it into one of my greatest strengths."

AWOL ERIZKU FOR TIME

In 2017, Gorman became the first National Youth Poet Laureate of the United States. In this role, she helped spread the joy and power of poetry to others.

Gorman hopes more young people take up poetry. Her advice for young poets? Read. Have patience while waiting for inspiration to come. "Poetry is for everyone," she says. "So embrace what makes your voice unique!"

JASON BEAN-RENO GAZETTE JOURNAL/AP

Making Change

SHAY MAUNZ FOR TIME FOR KIDS

Amanda Gorman has written a picture book. It's called Change Sings. It's a poem about how kids can change the world with small actions. They can do things like pick up litter. Or they can help their neighbors. "I want kids to know that they don't have to be observers of history, but the makers of it," Gorman says.

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On January 20, 2021, Amanda Gorman stood up to speak. She was at the U.S. Capitol building, in Washington, D.C. She was surrounded by leaders. More than 33 million people were watching on television. Gorman had been chosen to deliver...

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On Wednesday, January 20, President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris were sworn into office. At the inaugural ceremony, Amanda Gorman, 22, recited a poem that she wrote. It is called "The Hill We Climb." Since then, a video of her powerful performance has gone viral. People all over the world have been talking about her message of unity, hope, and change.

Here are eight things to know about this inspiring young poet.

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Meet the 22-year-old poet everyone is talking about

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Back to Biographies
Dr. Seuss wrote many famous childrens books such as The Cat in the Hat and Green Eggs and Ham. His books were unique at the time they were released. They were fun, silly, with interesting and imaginative characters and stories. His books are fun to read with great rhymes and colorful illustrations. Kids the world over have loved and grown up with Dr. Seuss' stories and books.

Is Dr. Seuss his real name?

Dr. Seuss is a pen name. The author's real name is Theodore Seuss Geisel. He also has written books under the name Theo LeSieg (Geisel backwards). Seuss comes from his middle name and his mother's maiden name. He put Dr. in front because his dad always wanted him to become a Doctor.

Even though most people pronounce his name Soose (like it rhymes with goose) the Seuss in his real middle name is pronounced Zoice (like it rhymes with voice).

Where did Dr. Seuss grow up?

Theodore Seuss Geisel was born in Springfield, Massachusetts on March 2, 1904. He grew up in Springfield and went to college at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire. At Dartmouth Ted, which is what his friends and family called him, was editor of the humor magazine The Jack-O-Lantern.

Read Across America

Dr. Seuss' birthday March 2nd has been chosen as the Read Across America Day by the National Education Association (NEA). Each year it's a day for kids, students, and teachers to focus on reading and how important and entertaining it can be.

Fun Facts about Dr. Seuss

In 2012 there will be four major motion pictures based on Dr. Seuss books. These include How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2002), The Cat in the Hat (2003), Horton Hears a Who (2008), and The Lorax(2012). These movies all had big stars like Jim Carrey, Steve Carrell, and Mike Myers.

There is a Dr. Seuss National Memorial Sculpture Garden in Springfield, Mass.

Most of his books are written in a poetic meter called anapestic tetrameter. Hard to say the term, but fun to read in his books!

He joined the Army during WWII.

He never had any children of his own.

He wrote Green Eggs and Ham based on the bet that he couldn't write a book using less than 50 words.

List of Dr. Seuss Books

And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street (1937)

The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins (1938)

The King's Stilts (1939)

The Seven Lady Godivas (1939)

Horton Hatches the Egg (1940)

McElligot's Pool (1947)

Thidwick the Big-Hearted Moose (1948)

Bartholomew and the Oobleck (1949)

If I Ran the Zoo (1950)

Scrambled Eggs Super! (1953)

Horton Hears a Who! (1954)

On Beyond Zebra! (1955)

If I Ran the Circus (1956)

How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (1957)

The Cat in the Hat (1957)

The Cat in the Hat Comes Back (1958)

Yertle the Turtle and Other Stories (1958)

Happy Birthday to You! (1959)

One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish (1960)

Green Eggs and Ham (1960)

The Sneetches and Other Stories (1961)

Dr. Seuss's Sleep Book (1962)

Dr. Seuss's ABC: An Amazing Alphabet Book! (1963)

Hop on Pop (1963)

Fox in Socks (1965)

I Had Trouble in Getting to Solla Sollew (1965)

The Cat in the Hat Song Book (1967)

The Foot Book (1968)

I Can Lick 30 Tigers Today! and Other Stories (1969)

My Book about ME (1970)

I Can Draw It Myself (1970)

Mr. Brown Can Moo! Can You?: Dr. Seuss's Book of Wonderful Noises! (1970)

The Lorax (1971)

Marvin K. Mooney Will You Please Go Now! (1972)

Did I Ever Tell You How Lucky You Are? (1973)

The Shape of Me and Other Stuff (1973)

There's a Wocket in My Pocket (1974)

Great Day for Up! (1974)

Oh, the Thinks You Can Think! (1975)

The Cat's Quizzer (1976)

I Can Read with My Eyes Shut! (1978)

Oh Say Can You Say? (1979)

Hunches in Bunches (1982)

The Butter Battle Book (1984)

You're Only Old Once! (1986)

I Am NOT Going to Get Up Today! (1987)

The Tough Coughs as He Ploughs the Dough (1987)

Oh, the Places You'll Go (1990)

Back toBiographies

Other Kids Books author biographies:

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Beverly Cleary

Andrew Clements

Roald Dahl

Kate DiCamillo

Margaret Peterson Haddix

Jeff Kinney

Gordon Korman

Gary Paulsen

Mary Pope Osborne

Rick Riordan

J K Rowling

Dr. Seuss

Lemony Snicket

Jerry Spinelli

Donald J. Sobol

Gertrude Chandler Warner

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Back to Biographies Dr. Seuss wrote many famous childrens books such as The Cat in the Hat and Green Eggs and Ham. His books were unique at the time they were released. They were fun, silly, with interesting and imaginative characters and stories. His books are fun to read with great rhymes and colorful illustrations.

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Kwame Alexander, in full Edward Curtis Kwame Alexander II, (born August 21, 1968, New York, New York), American poet, author of young adult and children's fiction, and advocate for introducing literary works and the art of writing to schoolchildren. He gained national prominence after winning the Newbery Medal in 2015 for his novel The Crossover (2014), much of which he wrote in free verse.

Alexander was born to literary parents: his father was a writer and publisher and his mother an English teacher. When he was 12 years old, his family moved to Virginia. After first studying biochemistry at Virginia Tech, Alexander switched to English and developed an interest in poetry under professor and poet Nikki Giovanni. He began his career as an editor, producing The Flow: New Black Poets in Motion (1994). Among his other literary pursuits, he founded the Alexander Publishing Group and its imprint, BlackWords Press (1995-2005). In 2019 Alexander teamed with publisher Houghton Mifflin Harcourt to launch the Versify imprint, under which he helped choose children's books to publish.

Alexander's first poetry collection for adults, Just Us: Poems and Counterpoems, 1986-1995, was published in 1995. His other collections include Kupenda: Love Poems (2000), Dancing Naked on the Floor (2005), and And Then You Know: New and Selected Poems (2009). The book Crush: Love Poems (2007) was written for young adults. In Out of Wonder (2017), Alexander and poets Chris Colderley and Marjory Wentworth created poems in celebration of 20 of their favourite poets. Ekua Holmes, who illustrated Out of Wonder, won the 2018 Coretta Scott King Book Award for her work. In 2020 Alexander published Light for the World to See: A Thousand Words on Race and Hope, a collection of poems on historic events, including the killing of George Floyd, the protests of football player Colin Kaepernick, and the election of Barack Obama as U.S. president.

Among his other writing accomplishments, Alexander wrote stories for children. Indigo Blume and the Garden City (2010) tells about a little girl and her rooftop garden. Acoustic Rooster and His Barnyard Band (2011) introduces jazz to young children through animals. Surf's Up (2016) follows the adventures of two frogs, one who likes to read and the other who likes to surf. In Animal Ark: Celebrating Our Wild World in Poetry and Pictures (2017), Alexander contributed verse to go along with photographs of animals. Published in 2019, The Undefeated is an homage to Black life in the United States. The book was named a Newbery Honor Book in 2020. Kadir Nelson, who illustrated The Undefeated, won the Caldecott Medal and the Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award in 2020 for his artwork.

Alexander also wrote books for an older audience. He Said, She Said (2013), for teens, explores the relationship between two seniors in high school: a football player and a social activist. Alexander's award-winning book The Crossover follows a year in the lives of twin African American 12-year-old boys and their love of basketball. Rebound (2018) is a prequel to The Crossover, focusing on the twins' father. In Booked (2016), Alexander again used free verse-this time, to explore a boy's relationship with his family and friends as he navigates a soccer injury, bullying, and his reluctance to read. Working with novelist James Patterson, Alexander combined prose and poetry in Becoming Muhammad Ali (2020), a fictionalized retelling of the boxer's youth. Solo (2017) and Swing (2018), both written with Mary Rand Hess, deal with weightier topics, such as drug addiction and social divisions, respectively. In 2022 Alexander published The Door of No Return, the first novel in a trilogy about a boy living in what is now Ghana who becomes entrapped in the transatlantic slave trade.

Alexander also wrote about the technical aspects of being an author. He published Do the Write Thing: Seven Steps to Publishing Success (2002) with Nina Foxx. In The Write Thing (2018), he discussed how writing workshops can benefit school-age children.

Besides writing, Alexander has been active in community-based initiatives. In 2006 he founded Book-in-a-Day, a nonprofit educational literacy service. The organization helps to promote reading and writing skills by encouraging children to write poetry and publish their work. In 2012 Alexander cofounded the Literacy Empowerment Action Project (LEAP), which is dedicated to increasing educational opportunities in Ghana. He is also a frequent contributor to Morning Edition, the daily news program on National Public Radio.

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Kwame Alexander | Biography, Books, Poems, & Facts

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Kwame Alexander, in full Edward Curtis Kwame Alexander II, (born August 21, 1968, New York, New York), American poet, author of young adult and children's fiction, and advocate for introducing literary works and the art of writing to schoolchildren.

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Booked by Kwame Alexander read aloud pages 1-20