“Robert Graves” – A Biography of a War Poet by Jean Moorcroft Wilson

I have a personal definition of what makes a good biography. Solid research and an understanding of the subject are a given, but what separates exceptional biographies from good ones is whether or not I find myself believing that I’m there with the subject, living the scenes, and experiencing the trials and triumphs. A simpler way to say it is, do I identify with the story being told about this person’s life?

Robert Graves: From Great War Poet to Good-Bye to All That 1895-1929 by Jean Moorcroft Wilson is one of those exceptional biographies. Almost all I knew about Graves was that he was the author of I Claudius and Claudius the God, written in the 1930s and popularized on PBS in the 1970s. Derek Jacobi starred in the title role. I was so mesmerized by the TV series that I read both books, learning that Graves had based his fictionalized story on the gossipy account by the Roman historian Suetonius, The Lives of the Caesars. 

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.

Alan Seeger: The American Poet in World War I

It’s a poem that used to be included in high school English textbooks and anthologies. It was a favorite poem of President John F. Kennedy. It became something of a national sensation, once America entered World War I. The poem is “I Have a Rendezvous with Death.”

The poet was an American, born in New York, and raised in both New York and Mexico. He was a roommate of T.S. Eliot at Harvard (Eliot was two years ahead of him). After graduating from Harvard, he drifted to Greenwich Village in New York City (where any American serious about becoming a poet went) and then to Paris. When World War I broke out, he joined the French Foreign Legion, part of the foreign brigade fighting for France. He died at the Battle of the Somme in July 1916 and was buried in France. The poet is Alan Seeger.

In War Poet: The Life of Alan Seeger and His Rendezvous with Death, author, producer, and historical consultant Michael Hilltells Seeger’s story. 

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.

Top photograph: the young Alan Seeger.