SCANNING THE FAVOURITES.
Aileen Fisher
9-9-1909 to 2-12-2002
Born on September 9, 1906 in Iron River, Michigan, died at her home in Boulder, Colorado, on December 2, 2002 .
Child LifeThe Coffee-Pot FaceRabbits, RabbitsGoing BarefootI Heard a Bluebird Sing was published by Wordsong in 2002.. In 1978, Ms. Fisher was awarded the National Council of Teachers of English Excellence in Poetry award. At the age of 96. Her final book, and . A prolific magazine author, she also wrote many books, such as magazine in 1927. Her first book was published in 1933, a collection of poetry entitled the graduated from the University of Missouri with a degree in journalism in 1927. She moved to Chicago, helped to place women journalists and became director in 1928 of the Women’s National Journalistic Register.
Kids Corner
Upside Down ( Lekhni-October-2009)
Open House ( Lekhni-October-2009)
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Anonymus
If You Should meet a crocodile (Lelhni-June-2008)
An Eighteenth century nursery rhyme (Lekhni-November -2008)
Frog ( Lekhni-July 2009)
Birds of a feather ( Lekhni-January-2010)
I hear thunder ( Lekhni-July-2010)
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Amrita Pritam
(B 1915, D 2005)
AMRITA PRITAM was amongst the outstanding literary figures of present-day India, she was the only woman recipient of the Sahitya Akademi’s award for literature. Amrita had published over two dozen collection of poems, short-stories and novels. The Skeleton(pinjar) is the first Punjabi novel to be translated into English. She was an eminent Punajbi poet and a prolific writer. She had to her credit twenty-four novels, fifteen collections of short stories and twenty-three volumes of prose. Her works had been defined as a ‘woman’s lyric cry against existential fate and societal abuse’, and have been widely translated. She was conferred the D.Litt. Degree by five universities. She was the first woman recipient of the Sahitya Akademi Award and was honored with Padma Shree in 1969. Two of her novels have been made into films. She received the Vaptarow Award in 1980 and the Bhartiya Jnanpith Award in 1982. She passed away in year 2005.
Daily wages (Lekhni-July-2007)
I will meet you again! (Lekhni-July-2007)
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Alan Seeger.
(1888-1916)
Alan Seeger was a young, early 20th century U.S. poet, a contemporary of T.S. Eliot, although very different in poetic style. Seeger died at Belloy-en-Santerre on July 4, 1916 while serving in the French Foreign Legion. “I Have a Rendezvous with Death” was one of John F. Kennedy’s favorite poems and he often asked his wife to recite it.
Seeger’s poetry was not published until 1917, a year after his death. Alan Seeger, as one who knew him can attest, lived his whole life on this plane, with impeccable poetic dignity; everything about him was in keeping.” The man who wrote this review of ‘Poems’ wasT.S. Eliot,Seeger’s classmate at Harvard.
I have a Rendezvous with death (Lekhni-August-2007)
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Alexander Pushkin
Born 6’th June 1799 Saint Petersburg, Russian Empire ,Died February 10, 1837 (aged 37)Moscow, Russian Empire
Alexander Pushkin was a Russian author of the Romantc era, who is considered to be the greatest Russian poet and the founder of modern Russian literature. Pushkin pioneered the use of vernacular speech in his poems and plays, creating a style of storytelling—mixing drama, romance, and satire—associated with Russian literature ever since and greatly influencing later Russian writers.
Because of his liberal political views and influence on generations of Russian rebels, Pushkin was portrayed by Bolsheviks as an opponent to bourgeois literature and culture and a predecessor of Soviet literature and poetry In 1937, the town of Tsarskoe Selo was renamed Pushkin in his honor.
My Favourites
1.Wonderous Moment (Lekhni-Feburary-2009)
2. A Magic Moment Remmber ( Lekhni-Feburary-2012)
3. Bound for your distant home ( Lekhni-Feburary-2012)
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Alfred ,Lord Tennyson ( 1809-1892)
“Tennyson is a great poet, for reasons that are perfectly clear. He has three qualities which are seldom found together except in the greatest poets: abundance, variety, and complete competence.” -T.S. Eliot.
We still look to the earlier masters for supreme excellence in particular directions: to Wordsworth for sublime philosophy, to Coleridge for ethereal magic, to Byron for passion, to Shelley for lyric intensity, to Keats for richness. Tennyson does not excel each of these in his own special field, but he is often nearer to the particular man in his particular mastery than anyone else can be said to be, and he has in addition his own special field of supremacy. What this is cannot be easily defined; it consists, perhaps, in the beauty of the atmosphere which Tennyson contrives to cast around his work, molding it in the blue mystery of twilight, in the opaline haze of sunset: this atmosphere, suffused over his poetry with inestimable skill and with a tact rarely at fault, produces an almost unfailing illusion or mirage of loveliness.
— Edmond Gosse, “Tennyson,” in the 11th edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica
Flavour of the month:
The throstle -Lekhni -june-2009
Favourites Forever
Recollections of Arabian Nights ( Lekhni-November-2012)
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Cecil Frances Alexander
All things bright and beautiful ( Lekhni-January-2010)
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Chinmoy Kumar Ghosh- (August 27, 1931 – October 11, 2007)
Known as Sri chinmoy was an Indian spiritual teacher and philosopher who immigrated to the U.S. in 1964, had a big fan following all over the world
Inspirational: Three short Poems ( Lekhni-january, Feburary 2011)
4. India is not a place ( Lekhni-August-2013)
5. What is Earth? ( Lekhni-August-2013)
6. My Krishna is not Black ( Lekhni-August-2013)
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Christina Rossetti
December 5, 1830- December 29, 1984
Christina Georgina Rossetti was an English poet, who wrote a variety of romantic, devotional, and children’s poems. She is best known for her long poem Goblin Market, which tells of two sisters tempted by goblin men to buy strange fruit.
A Birthday -(Lekhni-April-2008)
What does the babies do?( Lekhni-January-2010)
To My Mother ( Lekhni-November-2011)
Kids Corner
The rainbow (Lekhni- July 2008)
Who has seen the wind ( Lekhni-July 2008)
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Claud Mckay
(September 15, 1889 – May 22, 1948)
Festus Claudius “Claude” McKay was a Jamican American writer and poet, who was a seminal figure in the Harleem Renatssance. McKay was attracted to communism in his early life but later became disillusioned by it and started to write against it.
After the Winter (Lekhni-December-2013)
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D.H. Lawrence
Piano ( Lekhni-May-2008- Issue-3-Year-2)
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Dylan Marlais Thomas
(1914-1953)
Born in Swansea, Wales, he was famous for his heavy drinking and innovative and new imagery. Most talked about poems: And Death shall have no dominon and Do not go gentle into the goodnight; which keep on resurfacing in different anthologies. Born 27th october 1914 , Swansea, Wales. Died Greenwich village , Manhattan, New york city on the 9’th of nov(aged 39). We can clearly see the influences of D.H.Lawrence, Welsh mythology and James Joyes in his creative thought process and he influenced John Lennon and Bob Dylon.Dylan Thomas died in Manhatten, Newyork city; aged 39. Literary movement Romanticism and Modernism.
That sanity be kept- (Lekhni-November-2007)The force that through the green fuse-(Lekhni-November-2007)
A Process in the weather of the heart ( Lekhni-May-2013 )
Sometimes Sky’s Too Bright ( Lekhni-May-2013 )
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Eliyabeth Barrett Browning
(March 6 1806-June 29, 1861)
Elizabeth Barrett Browning , born in Durham, England was one of the most respected poets of the Victorian Era. She died in Florence Italy.
If thou must love me ( Lekhni-April 2008)
A Sea -Side Walk ( Lekhni-October-2011)
A Man’s Requirement ( Lekhni-October-2011)
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Emily Dickinson
(1830- 1886)
Born in Amherst, Massachusetts, she lived there all her life. She naturally concerned herself with neither past nor present, but with the things that are timeless. A puritan by heart, she was completely divorced from the outward stir of life, retiring, by preference, deeper and deeper within. Her poems are remarkable for their condensation, their vividness of image, their delicate or pungent satire and irony, their childlike responsiveness to experience, their subtle feeling for nature, startling abruptness in dealing with themes commonly regarded as trite, excellence in imaginative insight and still greater excellence in fancy. Typical is such a poem as that in which she celebrates the happiness of a little stone on the road, or that in which she remarks with gleeful irony upon the dignity that burial has in store for each of us—coach and footmen, bells in the village, “as we ride grand along.” Emily Dickinson takes us to strange places; one never knows what is in store. But always she is penetrating and dainty, both intimate and aloof, challenging lively thought on our part while remaining, herself, a charmingly elfish mystery.
Her place in American letters will be inconspicuous but secure.
1. Will there really be a morning? ( Lekhni-May-2010)
2. Who robbed the woods? ( Lekhni-May-2010)
3. Nature- ( Lekhni-May-2010)
Talking Heads
Four Extracts on Death ( Lekhni-December-2010)
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Erich Fried
(6 May 1921 – 22 November 1988),
An Auserian poet settled in England. Known for his political-minded poetry. He was also a broadcaster, translator and essayist.
He translated works by Shakespeare , T.S.Eliot and Dylan Thomas.
1. What it is ( Lekhni-January-2012)
2. Weaker ( Lekhni-January-2012)
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Forough Farrokhzad
( 5 January -1935- 13 Feburary 1967)
A Persian poet and film director, Forugh Farrokhzad is arguably Iran’s most significant female poet of the twentieth century. She was a brilliant
modernist poet and an iconoclast with deep sensivity and women’s cause at heart.
The bird was just a bird- (Lekhni-may-2009)
Conquest of the garden -(Lekhni-may-2009)
The Captive (Asir)- (Lekhni-may-2009)
The Wedding Band- (Lekhni-may-2009)
The bird may die -(Lekhni-may-2009)
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Frederick Louis MacNeice
(12-9- 1907 – 3-9- 1963)
Frederick Louis MacNeice a British and Irish poet and playwright was part of the generation of “thirties poets” which included W. H. Auden, Stephen Spender and C. Day Lewis; nicknamed MacSpaunday as a group. His body of work was widely appreciated by the public during his lifetime, due in part to his relaxed, but socially and emotionally aware style. Never as overtly (or simplistically) political as some of his contemporaries, his work shows a humane opposition to totalitarianism as well as an acute awareness of his Irish roots.
He wrote in the introduction to his Autumn Journal:
“ Poetry in my opinion must be honest before anything else and I refuse to be ‘objective’ or clear-cut at the cost of honesty. ”
-Autobiography-(Lekhni-March-2008)
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Frederick William Harvey
(March 26, 1888-Feburary 13, 1957)
born in Hatpury, Glouster shire , was an English soldier, poet, known for poems composed in prisoner-of-war camps at Krefeld and Gutesloh that were sent back to England, during World War 1.
These poems on duck were inspired by the drawings of a fellow prisoner, who used to draw ducks all the time.
Ducks1.2. 3. Poems titled Duck ( Lekhni-June-2009)
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George Gordon Byron
(22 January 1788 – 19 April 1824)
6th Baron Byron was an Anglo-Scottish poet and a leading figure in Romanticism. Among Lord Byron’s best-known works are the narrative poems Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage and Don Juan. The latter remained incomplete on his death. He was regarded as one of the greatest European poets and remains widely read.
Lord Byron’s fame rests not only on his writings but also on his life, which featured extravagant living, numerous love affairs, debts, separation, and allegations of incest and sodomy. He was famously described by Lady Caroline Lamb as “mad, bad, and dangerous to know.”
He created the concept of the ‘Byronic hero’ – a defiant, melancholy young man, brooding on some mysterious, unforgivable event in his past. Byron’s influence on European poetry, music, novel, opera, and painting has been immense, although the poet was widely condemned on moral grounds by his contemporaries.
So we’ll go roving no more (lekhni-June-2007)
When we two parted ( lekhni-Feburary-2009)
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George Macdonald
A baby Sermon ( Lekhni-January-2010)
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Hino Sojo
( 1901-1956 )
After entering the Third National Junior College; Hino Sojo became the brilliant leader of the student haiku club. In 1935 he initiated the hiaku magzine Kikan ( flagship) and advocated modern style of haiku. After World War II his hiaku became philosophical.
Haiku- Snap Shots of four seasons (Lekhni-December-2009)
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James Reeves( 1909-1978)
James Reeves was a British writer known for his poetry and contribution to children’s literature and the literature of collected traditional songs. His real name was John Morris. He was born in middlesex and educated at Stowe School and Jesus College, Cambridge. He taught until 1952 when he became a full-time writer.
Kids Corner
Poem- If Pigs Could fly- ( Lekhni-August 2008)
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John Keats
(31 October 1795,-23 February 1821)
Adored and admired by many, John Keats was one of the principal poets of the English Romantic movement. During his short life, his work received constant critical attacks from periodicals of the day, but his posthumous influence on poets such as Alfred Tennyson and many after him, has been immense. Elaborate word choice and sensual imagery characterize Keats’s poetry, including a series of odes that were his masterpieces and which remain among the most popular poems in English Literature. Keats’s letters, which expound on his aesthetic theory of “negative capability”, are among the most celebrated by any writer even today.
Ode to Autumn (Lekhni-November-2008)
Ode to a Grecian Urn (Lekhni-November-2008)
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John milton
Born December 9, 1608 Bread Street, cheapside, London
Died November 8, 1674 (aged 65) Bunhill, London, England
Poet, prose polemicist, civil servant
Notable work(s) Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained, Samson Agonistes, Areopagatica.
Milton’s literary career cast a formidable shadow over English poetry in the 18th and 19th centuries; he was often judged equal or superior to all other English poets, including Shakespeare. It is possible to observe Lucy Hutchinson’s epic poem about the fall of Humanity, Order and Disorder (1679), and John Dryden’s The State of Innocence and the Fall of Man: an Opera (1677) as evidence of an immediate cultural influence.
The influence of Milton’s poetry and personality on the literature of the Romantic era was partly ironic. The Romantic poets valued his exploration of blank verse, but for the most part rejected his religiosity.The Romantics’ simulataneous acceptance of Milton’s poetics and rejection of his theological concerns may have encouraged later readers to neglect the theological content of his long poems while admiring his often thunderously musical lines.
Light ( Lekhni-October-2008)
How Soon Hath Time (Lekhni-October-2008)
Paradise Lost ( Lekhni-Feburary-2010)
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Sir John Betjeman
(28 August 1906 – 19 May 1984)
Sir John Betjeman was an English poet, writer and broadcaster who described himself in Who’s Who as a “poet and hack”. He was born to a middle-class family in Edwardian Hampstead. Although he claimed he failed his degree at Oxford University, his early ability in writing poetry and interest in architecture supported him throughout his life. Starting his career as a journalist, he ended it as British Poet Laureate and a much-loved figure on British television.
1.Christmas (Lekhni-December-2007)
2. My Fanwy ( Lekhni-April-2010)
3. Meditation on the A 30 ( Lekhni-April-2010)
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John Clare
(13 July 1793– 20 May 1864)
John Clare was an English poet, in his time commonly known as “the Northamptonshire Peasant Poet”, born the son of a farm labourer at Helpston near peterborough . His poetry underwent a major re-evaluation in the late 20th century and he is often now considered to be one of the most important 19th-century poets.
First Love (Lekhni-12-feburary-2008)
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John Lennon
(9-10- 1940 – 8-12- 1980)
John Ono Lennon, MBE (born John Winston Lennon; an English rock musician, singer and songwriter, gained worldwide fame as one of the founders of The Beatles. In his solo career, Lennon wrote and recorded songs such as “Give Peace a Chance” and “Imagine”.
Lennon revealed his rebellious nature and irreverent wit on television, in films such as A Hard Day’s Night, in books such as In His Own Write, and in press conferences and interviews. He channelled his penchant for controversy into his work as a peace activist, artist, and author.
Imagine-(Lekhni-March-2008)
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J R R Tolkien
( 1892-1973)
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was born of British parents in Bloemfontein, South Africa in January of 1892, but moved with his mother, Mabel Tolkien, to England, at the age of three. Tolkien lost his father when he was very young. In 1904 Tolkien’s mother died, and the young John Ronald Reuel moved with his brother Hilary to his aunt’s home in England (the West Midlands).
Then they moved to the Birmingham suburb of Edgbaston Brought up and educated at Birmingham And Oxford J R R Tolkien is an eminent English writer, poet, philologist, and university professor, best known as the author of the classic high fantasy works : The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion In 2008 published by his son after his death. The Times ranked him sixth on a list of “The 50 greatest British writers since 1945” Forbes ranked him the 5th top-earning dead celebrity in 2009.
Song Of Aragorn ( Lekhni-August-2010)
I Sit And Think ( Lekhni -August-2010)
Roads Go Ever On ( Lekhni -August-2010)
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John Masefield
( 1-6-1878- 1967)
Poet, novelist, dramatist and journalist, John Masefield’s literary career was rich and varied, and although his reputation waned in later years, he is again being recognized for his wide range, encompassing ballads, nature poetry and mythological narrative, and for his attempt to make poetry a popular art.
To many, John Masefield is simply known as the poet who wrote about the sea. Some also know him as one of the Poet Laureates. It is certain however that one is not appointed Poet Laureate by simply writing verse about ships, salt water, and wind.
It would be far better, if it is needed to describe Masefield in very few words, to call him the poet who wrote of beauty and experience.
Sea Fever (Lekhni-11-january 2008)
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Kamla Das
( 31 March 1934 – 31 May 2009)
Kamala Surayya / Suraiyya, formerly known as Kamala Das , (also known as Kamala Madhavikutty, pen name was Madhavikutty) was a major Indian English poet and littérateur and at the same time a leading Malayalam author from Kerala, India. Her popularity in Kerala is based chiefly on her short stories and autobiography, while her oeuvre in English, written under the name Kamala Das, is noted for the fiery poems and explicit autobiography.
Her open and honest treatment of female sexuality, free from any sense of guilt, infused her writing with power, but also marked her as an iconoclast in her generation. On 31 May 2009, aged 75, she died at a hospital in Pune.
Favourite Forever
Introduction (Lekhni-September-2013)
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Kawbata Bosha
( 1900-1941)
Kawbata Bosha was first interested in painting but then turned to haiku. He was a sickly person, and after he contracted caries of the spine in 1931, writing haiku was his only pastime until he died. The dew was one of his most beloved images. His first volume of haiku contains twenty six poems on the dew.
Haiku- Snap Shots of four seasons (Lekhni-December-2009)
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Kobayashi Issa
(1763-1827)
Kobayashi Issa was born in Shinato ( now Nigata prefecture) the first son of a farmer. His mother died when he was three, and five years later his father remarried. The September was cold to Issa, and he struggled with family troubles all his life. At the age of fourteen he left Shinano for Edo ( Tokyo) and began to study haiku. His haiku are characterized by down-to-earth expressions and animal images.
Haiku- Snap Shots of four seasons (Lekhni-December-2009)
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Khalil Gibran
1.Song of the wave (Lekhni-Feburary-2009)
2. A Lover’s Call ( Lekhni-Feburary-2014)
3. A Tear and a Smile ( Lekhni-Feburary-2014)
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Le Po- 701-762
.It is generally agreed that Li Po was probably the greatest Chinese poets of pre-modern times. He and Tu Fu raised the shih form to its highest level of power of expression; later poets at times approached but never surpassed them.
Li Po’s distinction lies in the fact that he brought an unparalleled grace and eloquence to his treament of the traditional themes, a flow and grandeur that lift his work far above mere immitation of the past. Another characteristic of his poetry is the air of playfulness, hyperbole and outright fantasy that infuses much of it.
Three poems by le po – Lekhni-September-2009
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Louis Maud Montogomary
(November 30, 1874 – April 24, 1942),
Lucy Maud Montgomery OBE called “Maud” by family and friends and publicly known as L. M. Montgomery, was a Canadian author best known for a series of novels beginning with Anne Of Green Gables, published in 1908. Anne of Green Gables was an immediate success. The central character, Anne, an orphaned girl, made Montgomery famous in her lifetime and gave her an international following.The first novel was followed by a series of sequels with Anne as the central character. Montgomery went on to publish 20 novels as well as 500 short stories and poems. Many of the novels were set on Prince Edward Island, Canada and places in the Canadian province became literary landmarks. She was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 1935.
Montgomery’s work, diaries and letters have been read and studied by scholars and readers worldwide.
To My Mother ( Lekhni-November-2011)
The Garden in Winter (LeKhni-December-2013)
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Mahmoud Darwish
(13 March 1941 – 9 August 2008)
Mahmoud Darwish was a Palestinian poet and author who won numerous awards for his literary output and was regarded as the Palestinian national poet. In his work, Palestine became a metaphor for the loss of Eden, birth and resurrection, and the anguish of dispossession and exile
1.I come from there ( Lekhni-September 2011)
2. To My Mother ( Lekhni-September 2011) ( Lekhni-November-2011)
3. Under the seige ( Lekhni-September 2011)
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Masoka Shikki
(1867-1902)
In his youth Massoka Shiki contracted tuberculosis and became an invalid. He devoted his life to literature , writing essays, haiku and tanaka ( traditional 31 lined poem). Shiki pushed forward a major reform of haiku by advocating the writing of shasei ( sketches from life ). In 1987 he initiated the haiku magzine Hototogisu ( Cukoo).
Haiku- Snap Shots of four seasons (Lekhni-December-2009)
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Mathew Arnold
(24 December 1822 – 15 April 1888)
was an English poet, and cultural critic who worked as an inspector of schools.
Longing (Lekhni-Feburary-2009)
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Michael Drayton
(1563 – 13 december 1631)
Michael Drayton was an English poet who came to prominence in the elizabethan era.
Parting (Lekhni-September-2008)
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Miroslav Holub
A Histoory Lesson : translation frof chech by George theiner ( Lekhni-June-2008- Year-2-Issue-4)
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Nishijima Bakunan
( 1895-1981)
Nishijima Bakunan, a lifetime disciple of Iida Dakotsu, was a humanist of firm character. Right before the end of the World War II, he was imprisoned for his antiwar views. He engaged in farming in Kyushu and sought no wordly fame.
Haiku- Snap Shots of four seasons (Lekhni-December-2009)
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Naito Joso
( 1662-1704)
At one time a sumurai, Naito Josho later became a priest and in 1689 joined Basho’s group. Sincere and faithful to his master he mourned his death for three years.
Haiku- Snap Shots of four seasons (Lekhni-December-2009)
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Nakumara Teijo
( 1900-88)
Nakumara Teijo was born in Kumamoto in kyushu. Her sensitive, feminine haiku are often contrasted with the passionate masculine hiaku of Sugita Hisajo, another leading woman hiaku poet. Tejjo composed the so-called ” Kitchen haiku” , poems reflecting her everyday life.
Haiku- Snap Shots of four seasons (Lekhni-December-2009)
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OgdenNash (1902-1971)
America’s most accomplished writer of light verse, Ogden Nash applied his love of language to poems, stories, and lyrics. A ‘versifier’ who invented and misspelled words to create unexpected rhymes, Nash’s fables on human foibles continue to delight, inspire and enlighten people worldwide.
In an excerpt from his graduation address, Nash encourages the student’s to view humor as their most valuable tool:
“It is not brash, it is not cheap, it is not heartless, Among other things I think humor is a shield, a weapon, a survival kit,
Not only has this brief span of ours been threatened by such perils not of our own making such as fire and flood, Tyrannosaurus Rex, the black death, and hurricanes named after chorus girls, but we have been most ingenious in devising means for destroying each other, a habit we haven’t yet learned how to kick. So here we are, several billion of us, crowded into our global concentration camp for the duration, How are we to survive? Solemnity is not the answer, any more than witless and irresponsible frivolity is. I think our best chance lies in humor, which in this case means a wry acceptance of our predicament. We don’t have to like it but we can at least recognize its ridiculous aspects, one of which is ourselves.”
Kids’ Corner
The Duck-( Lekhni-June-2009)
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Oshima Ryota
(1718-1787 )
Oshima Ryota avoided the wtty urbane style of haiku prevelent in the mid eighteenth century and promoted a return of the original principles of Basho. He was an excellent teacher & had two thousand pupil at one time.
Haiku- Snap Shots of four seasons (Lekhni-December-2009)
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Pablo Neruda
(July 12, 1904 – September 23, 1973)
Pablo Neruda was the pen name and, later, legal name of the Chilean writer and politician Neftalí Ricardo Reyes Basoalto.With his works translated into many languages, poet and politician Pablo Neruda is considered one of the greatest and most influential poets of the 20th century.Neruda was accomplished in a variety of styles ranging from erotically charged love poems like his collection Twenty Poems of love and a Song of Despair, surrealist poems, historical epics, and overtly political manifestos. In 1971 Neruda won the Nobel Prize for Literature. Laced with mysticism, despair and yet an intenal peace , his poems leave an impressionable imprint on mind.
Bird- (Lekhni-December-2009)
Love Sonett XVII (Lekhni-December-2009)
Saddest poem (Lekhni-December-2009)
I like for you to be still(Lekhni-December-2009)
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Paul Francis Webster
Love is a many splendored thing (Lekhni-March-2010)
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One of the finest English Romantic Poet; he became the idol of the next two or three generations of poets, including the major Victorian and Pre-Raphaelite poets Robert Browning, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Algernon Charles Swinburne, as well as William Butler Yeats and poets in other languages such as Jibanananda Das and Subramanya Bharathy. He was also admired by Karl Marx, Henry Stephens Salt, and Bertrand Russell. Famous for his association with his equally short-lived contemporaries John Keats and Lord Byron, he was married to novelist Mary Shelley. Shelley’s unconventional life and uncompromising idealism, combined with his strong skeptical voice, made him a notorious and much denigrated figure during his life.
Love’s Philosophy(Lekhni-12-feburary-2008)
To A Skylark ( Lekhni-45-November-2010)
On Death ( Lekhni-December-2010)
Ode To Adanais ( an extract) ( Lekhni-December-2010)
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Primo Michele Levi
( July 31 1919- April 11, 1987)
Born in Turin Italy, was a Jewish Italian chemist, who survived Holocaust. Author of memoirs, short stories, poems and novels, he acquired the pen nameDamiane Matabella for his fictional work. He is best known for his work on the Holocaust and in particular his account of the year he spent as a prisoner in Auscwitz, the infamous death camp in Nazi-occupied Poland. If This Is a Man (published in the United States as Survival in Auschwitz) has been described as one of the most important works of the twentieth century. Bulk of his writing was done during the period of 1947 to 1986 after he was released from Nazi-Camp.
Almanac- (Lekhni-July 2008 )
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Rabindranath Tagore
7-5-1861-7-8-1941
Ravindra Nath Tagore, born And died in Calcutta is a towering figure in literature. A cultural icon of Bengal and India, he became Asia’s first Nobel laureate when he won the 1913 Nobel Prize in Literature. He established Viswa-Bharti or Shanti-Niketan… a gift to the world of his undying love and dedication to Art and literature.
Tagore’s works included numerous novels, short-stories, collection of songs, dance-drama, political and personal essays. Some prominent examples are Gitanjali (Song Offerings), Gora (Fair-Faced), and Ghare-Baire (The Home and the World). His verse, short stories, and novels—many defined by rhythmic lyricism, colloquial language, meditative naturalism, and philosophical contemplation—received worldwide acclaim. Tagore was also a cultural reformer and polymath who modernised Bengali art by rejecting strictures binding it to classical Indian forms. Two songs from his rabindrasangeet canon are now the national anthems of Bangladesh and India: ‘the Amar Shonar Bangla’ and the ‘Jana Gana Mana’.
Ordinary woman (Lekhni-March-2007)
Ferry-boat (Lekhni-October-2007)
The Rainy Day ( Lekhni-July-2010)
Three Excerpts from Geetanjali ( Lekhni-July-2010)
The begining ( Lekhni-january, Feburary 2011)
Broken Song ( Lekhni-january, Feburary 2011)
Chosen Path ( Lekhni-january, Feburary 2011)
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Ronald Stuart Thomas
(29 March, 1913 – 25 september2000)
Poet and a clergyman, R.S. Thomas took most of his inspirations from the bleak landscapes of Banger and surrounding area, The bleak Welsh landscape and the harsh life of the farmers (who were his parishioners) provided much of the inspiration for his poetry.Thomas was a great advocate of the Welsh language which he learnt at the age of 30. However, he always wrote his poems in English. Thomas was also a fervent supporter of Welsh nationalism and even condoned violent action against English-owned properties in Wales.
Only child of a clergy Thomas also wrote some of the finest religious poetry of his generation: detailing his hard-won sense of affirmation in the face of silence and doubt.Benjamin Bates wrote
In 1964 Thomas was awarded the Queen’s Gold Medal for poetry.
Thomas was a prolific poet – writing over 1500 poems in his lifetime. His complete poems 1945-90 were published in 1993 to mark his 80th birthday. Ted Hues was a great admirer of his work.
In 1998 The Manic Street Preachers reproduced his poem Reflections on the cover of their CD This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours. It was taken from his final collection No Truce with the Furies.
In 1996 Thomas was nominated for the Nobel Prize for Literature. He died in 2000 at the age of 87.
And lastly there was the girl:
Beauty under some spell of the beast.
Her pale face was the lantern
By which they read in life’s dark book
The shrill sentence: God is love.
From: On the Farm
Here ( Lekhni-June-2008- Year-2-Issue-4)
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Robert Frost
(1874-1963)
Robert Frost, four-time Pulitzer Prize winning American poet, teacher and lecturer wrote many popular and oft-quoted poems including “After Apple-Picking”, “The Road Not Taken”, “Home Burial” and “Mending Wall”; (21-2 1907– 29 -9-1973)W. H. Auden was born in york city and grew up in Birmingham in a middle class educated family . He himself went to Oxford to read English literature. Auden an Anglo-American poet, regarded by many as one of the greatest writers of the 20th century. His work is noted for its stylistic and technical achievements, its engagement with moral and political issues, and its variety of tone, form, and content. The central themes of his poetry are: personal love, politics and citizenship, religion and morals, and the relationship between unique human beings and the anonymous, impersonal world of nature.
Oh tell me the truth about love – (Lekhni-12-Feburary 2008)
The Road Not taken (Lekhni-April-2007)
Stopping by the woods on a snowy evening ( Lekhni-December2007)
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Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson
(13 November 1850- 3 December 1894)
Robert louise Stevenson was a Scottish novelist, poet, essayist and travel writer. He was the man who “seemed to pick the right word up on the point of his pen, like a man playing spillikins”, as G. K. Chesterton put it. His novel ‘ Treasure Island’ is still a big hit with old and young alike. Stevenson was greatly admired by many authors, including Jorge Luis Borges, Ernest Hemingway, Rudyard Kipling, Vladmir Nabokov and J.M. Barrie.
To My Mother ( Lekhni-November-2011)
kid’s Corner
A birdie with a yellow bill (Lekhni-November-2008)
Windy Nights ( Lekhni-April-2010)
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Rudyard Kipling
Born: December 30, 1865 Bombay, India
Died: January 18, 1936 (aged 70)
Middlesex Hospital, London, England
Occupation: Short story writer, novelist, poet, Journalist
Nationality: British
Genres: Short story, novel, children’s literature, poetry, travel literature
If-(Lekhni-October-2007)
The Law Of The JUngle ( Lekhni-June-2010)
Justice ( Lekhni-June-2010)
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Rumi
Persian Maulana, Thinker and poet
Favourite Forever
1. I’ve said before– (Lekhni-December -2008)
2. Oh, if a tree could… ( Lekhni-December-2008)
3. I died as mineral ( Lekhni-December-2008)
4. Some kiss we want ( Lekhni-Feburary-2009)
5. I was dead then alive ( Lekhni-Feburary-2009)
6. We are flute ( Lekhni-March-2010)
7. The minute I heard ( Lekhni-March-2010)
8. There is a Candle in your heart ( Lekhni-June-2013)
9. Close the language door ( Lekhni-June-2013)
10. Only You ( Lekhni-June-2013)
11. If ( Lekhni-June-2013)
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Rupert Brook
Rupert Brook born in Rugby England was famous for his poetry as well as his good looks.
The Hill (Lekhni-June-2007)
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Spike milligan (16-4-1918-27-2-2007)
Terence Alan Patrick Seán Milligan; a comedian, writer, musician, poet, and playwright. He was born in India to an english mother and an Irish father who was serving in the British Army. During his teens and early twenties Spike performed as a Jazz musician and was already starting to write comedy sketches. He played the piano, trumpet , guitar, and sexaphone Spike excelled in the writing of nonsense poems and verse having many books published and to his credit some of which are still taught in schools.Spike was without doubt a comedy great and helped shape the landscape of British comedy.
Fear Fly-Lekhnni- September-2008 (Kids Corner)
Granny’s Boot-Lekhnni- September-2008 (Kids Corner)
Favourites Forever- Lekhni-March-2009
1.Bozonka
2.A Silly Poem
3.Feelings
4.Jumbo jet
5.Letters
6.Me
7. Goodbye S.S ( Lekhni-April-2012)
Kids Corner ( Lekhni-April-2012)
1.Bump
2. Down The Stream The Swans All Glide
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Siegried Sasson
(8 September 1886 – 1 September 1967)
Siegfried Loraine Sassoon,CBE, MC was an English poet and author. He became known as a writer of sataricalf anti-war verse during World War 1. He later won acclaim for his prose work.
Counter Attack- (From Counter Attack) Lekhni-August-2009)
Does It Matter ( From Counter Attack) Lekhni-August-2009)
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Stevie Smith
(1902 – 1971 )
Florence Margaret Smith was born on September 20, 1902 in Hull, England. Her father left the family to join the North Sea Patrol when she was just a young girl. She moved at the age of three to Palmers Green where she attended the North London Colliegate School. While still only a teenager her mother died and she and her sister went to live with their spinster aunt. The aunt became an important figure in her life, affectionately known as “The Lion”.
While Smith’s volatile attachment to the Church of England is evident in her poetry, death, her “gentle friend,” is perhaps her most popular subject. Much of her inspiration came from theology and the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm. She enjoyed readingTennyson and Browning and read few contemporary poets in an attempt to keep her voice original and pure. Her style is unique in its combination of seemingly prosaic statements, variety of voices, playful meter, and deep sense of irony. Smith was officially recognized with the Chomondeley Award for Poetry in 1966 and the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry in 1969. Smith died of a brain tumor in 1971. ..
Not waving but drowning (Lekhni-August-2007)
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Sully-Prudhomme (1839-1907)
Winner of 1901 Nobel Prize for Literature
Sully-Prudhomme, by his attention to the precise form and style, belongs in the Parnassian movement. However, his inspiration runs counter to the movement; he sings of his intimate feelings, the dictates of his moral conscience, and the troubles of his thoughts. His lyrical works, Stances et Poèmes (Stanzas and Poems 1865), Les Épreuves (The Trials, 1866), Les Solitudes (1869), Les Vaines Tendresses (Vain Tenderness 1875), are followed by philosophical poems, La Justice (1878) and Le Bonheur (Happiness, 1888). Certain of his poems have a melancholy and delicate charm.
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Surdas
One of the greatest exponent of ‘Faktiras’ poetry from India. Blind by birth, his padas on Krishna’s bal-leela are still all time favourites all over India. Written in Brijbhasha by the poet, translation given here has been done by: Kalaivani Retnavellu
Three padas by Surdas ( Lekhni-September-2010)
Krishna Questions ( Lekhni-August-2013)
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Thomas Bracken
(21 December 1843-16 Feburary 1898)
Thomas Bracken was a noted late 19th century poet. He wrote “God Defend Newzealand”, one of the two National anthems of NewZealand and was the first person to publish the phrase “Gods own country”.
Not Understood (Lekhni-September-2008)
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Thomas Hood
(May 23 1799- May 3, 1845) ,
was a British humorist and poet. His son Tom Hood, became a well known playwright and editor.
“Next to being a citizen of the world,” writes Thomas Hood in his Literary Reminiscences, “it must be the best thing to be born a citizen of the world’s greatest city.”
I remember, I remember ( Lekhni-May-2008- Issue-3-Year-2)
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Thomas Lovell Beddoes
(30-6-1803- 26-1- 1849)
Thomas Lovell Beddoes was an English poet and dramatist.
Dream Pedlary (Lekhni-September-2008)
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Thomas Moore
(28 May 1779 – 25 February 1852)
An Irish poet, singer, songwriter, and entertainer, is now best remembered for the lyrics of The Ministrel Boy and The Last Rose of Summer.
Favourites Forever
1. Dear Harp of My country ( Lekhni-August-2011)
2. All in a family way ( Lekhni-August-2011)
3. As a beam o’er the face of the waters may glow ( Lekhni-August-2011)
4. Befire The Battle ( Lekhni-December-2011)
5. At the mid hour of night ( Lekhni-December-2011)
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Tu Fu
(712-770)
A prominant chinese poet of tang dynesty. Little known in his life time. But a huge influence on both Chinese and Japanese poetry.
1. The Morning Rain ( Lekhni-July-2010)
2.Rain ( Lekhni-July-2010)
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Walt Whitman
Thought ( Lekhni-January/Feburary2013)
Ashes Of a Soldier ( Lekhni-January/Feburary2013)
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Walter John de la Mare
( 25 April 1873 – 22 June 1956)
Walter John de la Mare was an English Poet, short story writer and novelist . He is probably best remembered for his works for children and for his poem “ The Listener” and for his poem “The Listeners”. He also wrote some subtle psychological horror stories, amongst them “Seaton’s Aunt” and “Out of the Deep”. His 1921 novelMemoirs of a Midget won the James Tait Black movement prize for fiction and his post-war Collected Stories for Children won the 1947 Camegie Medal for British children’s books.
Winter ( Lekhni-December-2013)
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William Blake
English artist, mystic and poet wrote Songs of Innocence (1789): a poetry collection written from the child’s point of view, of innocent wonderment and spontaneity in natural settings which includes “Little Boy Lost”, “Little Boy Found” and “The Lamb”.
My Pretty Rose-Tree (Lekhni-October-2009)
Auguries of Innocence (Lekhni-October-2009)
A Poison Tree ( Lekhni-June-2011)
A Little Boy Lost ( Lekhni-June-2011)
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William Earnest Henly
(23 August 1849 – 11 July 1903)
was an English poet, critic and editor, best remembered for his 1875 poem “Invicious”.
A Child ( Lekhni-July-2013)
A love By the sea ( Lekhni-July-2013)
Invicion ( Lekhni-July-2013)
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William Henry Davies
(1871-1940)
William Henry Davies, poet and author, was born in Pillgwenlly, Newport, Monmouthshire. After leaving school he trained as a carver and gilder, but remained dissatisfied with his life. He left his work and spent a period working and begging his way across the United States of America and Canada, but in March 1899 he lost his foot while jumping from a train. He returned to Britain and resolved to make his mark as a poet. After experiencing many setbacks he eventually published his first book, ‘The Soul’s Destroyer and Other Poems’ in March 1905. Subsequent volumes included ‘New Poems’ (1907), ‘Nature Poems’ (1908), ‘Farwell to Poesy’ (1910), ‘Songs of Joy’ (1911), ‘Foliage’ (1913), and ‘The Bird of Paradise’ (1914). He also wrote prose and his ‘Autobiography of a Super-Tramp’ (1908) was based on his experiences of living hand-to-mouth in England and north America. In 1923 he married Helen Payne, a prostitute who was thirty years his junior. They settled in Sussex and later Gloucestershire. He was awarded an Honorary Degree by the University of Wales in 1929 and a plaque in his honour was unveiled at the Church House Inn, Newport, in 1938.
The Moon And A Cloud (Lekhni-7-September-2007)
Shooting Stars (Lekhni-7-September-2007)
Leisure (Lekhni-11-January 2008)
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William Shakespeare
Sonnets
Or I Shall live ( Lekhni-April-2013)
Some Glory ( Lekhni-April-2013)
Winter ( Lekhni-December-2013)
Blow, Blow , The Winter Wind ( Lekhni-January-2014)
All The World Is A Stage ( Lekhni-January-2014)
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William Wordswrth
7-4-1770-23-4-1850
William Wordsworth was a major English romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped launch the Romantic Age in English literature with their 1798 joint publication, Lyrical Ballads. Wordsworth’s masterpiece is generally considered to be The Prelude, an autobiographical poem of his early years that was revised and expanded a number of times. It was never published during his lifetime, and was only given the title after his death. Up until this time it was generally known as the poem “to Coleridge”. Wordsworth was England’s Poet Laureate from 1843 until his death in 1850.
Daffodils (Lekhni-May-2007)
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William Butler Yeats
(13-6-1865-28-1-1939)
W.B. Yeats was an Irish poet and dramatist and one of the foremost figures of 20th century literature. He was a driving force behind the Irish Literary Revival, and together with Lady Gregory and Edward Martyn founded the Abbey Theatre and served as its chief playwright during its early years. Yeats was a pillar of the Irish literary establishment and was an Irish Senator for two terms. In 1923, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for what the Nobel Committee described as “his always inspired poetry, which in a highly artistic form gives expression to the spirit of a whole nation”.
Yeats is generally considered one of the few writers whose greatest works were completed after being awarded the Nobel Prize; such works include The Tower (1928) and The Winding Stair and Other Poems (1929).
Yeats was educated in London, but spent his childhood holidays in Sligo. He studied painting in his youth, and from an early age was fascinated by both Irish legends and the occult. These topics feature heavily in the first phase of his work, which lasted roughly until the turn of the century. His earliest volume of verse was published in 1887, and these slowly paced and lyrical poems display debts to Edmund Spenser and Percy Bysshe Shelley, as well as to the lyricism of the Pre-Raphaelite poets. From 1900, Yeats’ poetry grew more physical and realistic. He renounced the transcendentalism of his youth, though he remained preoccupied with physical and spiritual existence, masks and cyclical theories of life. Over the years Yeats adopted many different political positions, including, in the words of the critic Michael Valdez Moses, “those of radical nationalist, classical liberal, reactionary conservative, and millenarian nihilist”.
1. He wishes for Clothes of heaven ( Lekhni-April-2007)
2. The Player Queen ( Lekhni-March-April-2011)
3. Brown Penny ( Lekhni-March-April-2011)
4. The Second Coming ( Lekhni-March-April-2011)
5. A Poet To His Beloved ( Lekhni-November- 2013)
6. A Prayer Going In My House ( Lekhni-November- 2013)
7. A Song From The Player Queen ( Lekhni-November- 2013)
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Yosa Buson
(1716-1784)
Yosa Buson was a leading poet & a distinguished painter of the late eighteenth century from Japan. His poetry is pictorial, romantically lyrical, and often displays a delicate sensitivity.
Haiku- Snap Shots of four seasons (Lekhni-December-2009)
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