Library: Poetry by Credo Reference: World Poetry

National Poetics

Chinese poetry
From The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics
Contemp. Chinese poets have a conception of poetry much in common with the view held by their compatriots in other countries, so to use the term Chinese poetry may seem at first unproblematic. But before the mod. period, Chinese writers employed no single term that embraced all traditional forms of verse; they referred instead to individual genres.
Gaucho poetry
From The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics
Taken literally, G. p. is the name for poetic compositions, anonymous or otherwise, which deal with the life and adventures of the Argentinean cowboy. It would be a mistake to apply the same denomination to all popular poetry produced in Sp. America.
Guerilla poetry
From Encyclopedia of Latin American and Caribbean Literature, 1900-2003
This is not an easy body of work to categorize, since its defining and unifying feature is neither aesthetic nor geographical, but political. Yet it is a recognizable group of writings, occurring simultaneously in time (largely in the 1960s) and disparately in space (from Central America to Peru). And it does present common characteristics, both in expression and register, and in the general circumstances of its conception and unfolding.
Japanese poetry
From The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics
apanese poetry has a recorded hist. of approximately 1,500 years, and the art has occupied a central position in the nation's cultural life. While the term Japanese poetry generally applies to verses in the vernacular, i.e., poetry in Japanese, it also refers in its most inclusive sense to poetry by Japanese, incl. that written in Chinese, which until mod. times was the lingua franca of East Asian literati.
Judeo-Spanish poetry
From The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics
The poetry sung, recited, or written in the Judeo-Sp. (Judezmo, Ladino) dialect, in the various post-diasporic sanctuaries of the Sephardic Jews—North Africa (Morocco, Algeria) and the Eastern Mediterranean (the Balkans, Greece, Turkey, Israel)—after their exile from Spain in 1492.
The Kalevala: Topic Page
Kalevala ('land of heroes', that is, Finland) is an epic poem first published in 1835 and brought out complete (at 22,800 lines long) in 1849.
Native American poetry
From The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics
The lyric impulse in North Am. Indian cultures is rich, diverse, and persistent.
South African poetry
From Encyclopedia of Post-Colonial Literatures in English
The origins of South African poetry in English are usually traced to the 1820s.

World Poets

Chinua Achebe (1930 - 2013): Topic Page
Nigerian writer, b. Albert Chinualumogu Achebe. A graduate of University College at Ibadan (1953), Achebe, an Igbo who writes in English, is one of Africa's most acclaimed authors.
Yehuda Amichai (1924 - 2000)
From Holocaust Literature: An Encyclopedia of Writers and Their Work
Yehudah Amichai was born in 1924 in Wurtzburg, Germany, to Jewish orthodox parents. He was educated in religious schools, where he learned Hebrew. In 1936 his family relocated, first living in Petach Tikvah, Israel, and then in Jerusalem.
Jorge Luis Borges (1899 - 1986): Topic Page
Argentine poet, critic, and short-story writer, b. Buenos Aires. Borges has been widely hailed as the foremost contemporary Spanish-American writer.
Gunnar Ekelof (1907 - 1968)
From The Columbia Encyclopedia
Swedish poet. Ekelöf's lifelong interest in mysticism was evident in his first book, Late Arrival on Earth (1932, tr. 1967), a collection of surrealist poems.
Nicolas Guillen (1902 - 1989)
From Encyclopedia of Latin American and Caribbean Literature, 1900-2003
Often considered the ‘national poet’ of Revolutionary Cuba, Guillén is one of the most important poets of the African diaspora and a central figure in the Latin American poetic canon.
Antonio Machado (1875 - 1939)
From The Columbia Encyclopedia
Spanish poet of the Generation of '98. He spent most of his life in Castile and his best poetry was influenced by its sober and dramatic landscape.
Jose Marti (1853 - 1895): Topic Page
Cuban essayist, poet, and patriot, leader of the Cuban struggle for independence. One of the greatest prose writers of Spanish America, he is noted for his fluent style and vivid imagery.
Czeslaw Milosz (1911 - 2004): Topic Page
Poet, essayist, and novelist, b. Szetejnie, Lithuania (then in Russia). Widely considered the greatest contemporary Polish poet, Miłosz was born into an ethnically Polish family.
Pablo Neruda (1904 - 1973): Topic Page
Chilean poet, diplomat, and Communist leader. He changed his original name, Neftalí Ricardo Reyes Basualto, so that his railroad-worker father would not discover that he was a poet.
Ranier Maria Rilke (1875 - 1926): Topic Page
German poet, b. Prague, the greatest lyric poet of modern Germany. Rilke's youth at military and business school was not happy.
Wislawa Szymborska (1923 - 2012): Topic Page
Polish poet, awarded a Nobel Prize for Literature in 1996. Her work is particularly noted for its careful choice of words and universal themes.