Sir Gawain and the Green Knight ( Middle English: Sir Gawayn and þe Grene Knyȝt) is a late 14th-century Middle English alliterative romance. It is one of the best known Arthurian stories, and is of a type known as the "beheading game". The Green Knight is interpreted by some as a representation of the Green Man of folklore and by others as an allusion to Christ. Written in bob and wheel stanzas, it draws on Welsh, Irish and English stories, as well as the French chivalric tradition. It is an important poem in the romance genre, which typically involves a hero who goes on a quest which tests his prowess, and it remains popular to this day in modern English renderings from J. R. R. Tolkien, Simon Armitage and others, as well as through film and stage adaptations.

It describes how Sir Gawain, a knight of King Arthur's Round Table, accepts a challenge from a mysterious " Green Knight" who challenges any knight to strike him with his axe if he will take a return blow in a year and a day. Gawain accepts and beheads him with his blow, at which the Green Knight stands up, picks up his head and reminds Gawain of the appointed time. In his struggles to keep his bargain Gawain demonstrates chivalry and loyalty until his honour is called into question by a test involving Lady Bertilak, the lady of the Green Knight's castle.

The poem survives in a single manuscript, the Cotton Nero A.x., which also includes three religious narrative poems: Pearl, Purity and Patience. All are thought to have been written by the same unknown author, dubbed the " Pearl Poet" or "Gawain Poet", since all four are written in a North West Midland dialect of Middle English. (Full article...)

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (February 27, 1807 – March 24, 1882) was an American poet and educator whose works include " Paul Revere's Ride", The Song of Hiawatha, and Evangeline. He was also the first American to translate Dante Alighieri's The Divine Comedy and was one of the five Fireside Poets.

Longfellow was born in Portland, Maine, which was then a part of Massachusetts. He studied at Bowdoin College. After spending time in Europe he became a professor at Bowdoin and, later, at Harvard College. His first major poetry collections were Voices of the Night (1839) and Ballads and Other Poems (1841). Longfellow retired from teaching in 1854 to focus on his writing, living the remainder of his life in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in a former headquarters of George Washington. His first wife Mary Potter died in 1835 after a miscarriage. His second wife Frances Appleton died in 1861 after sustaining burns when her dress caught fire. After her death, Longfellow had difficulty writing poetry for a time and focused on his translation. He died in 1882.

Longfellow wrote predominantly lyric poems, known for their musicality and often presenting stories of mythology and legend. He became the most popular American poet of his day and also had success overseas. He has been criticized, however, for imitating European styles and writing specifically for the masses. (Full article...)

• ... that Katharina Konradi, a soprano born in Kyrgyzstan, made a recording of lieder with pianist Gerold Huber including settings by Lori Laitman of children's poems written in Terezin?
• ... that Yoko Ono took the first verse of her 1970 song " Who Has Seen the Wind?" from a 19th century poem written by Christina Rossetti?
• ... that one music critic said that despite being "noisy, banal, fundamentally insincere", Dmitri Shostakovich's symphonic poem October was nonetheless "enjoyable trash"?
• ... that the Blemyomachia is an epic poem describing a historical clash between the Roman Empire and the Blemmyes in the Nile valley?
• ... that The Land We Love, a little magazine that merged into Southern Magazine, printed American Civil War recollections, poetry, agricultural material, and many works by female authors?
• ... that Adolphe Jacquies was arrested for publishing a poem?

Sonnet 18 by William Shakespeare

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate: Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer's lease hath all too short a date: Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, And often is his gold complexion dimm'd, And every fair from fair sometime declines, By chance, or nature's changing course untrimm'd: But thy eternal summer shall not fade, Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st, Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade, When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st,     So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,     So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Full set of selected poems

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