Poetry: World Poetry

From The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics
The late 1960s and early 1970s were a time of intellectual ferment and rebellion in the United States. Caught up in the unrest, young Mexican Americans throughout the country sought a new identity while struggling for the same civil rights of previous generations. MORE

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.

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.

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.

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. MORE

From The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics
The lyric impulse in North Am. Indian cultures is rich, diverse, and persistent. MORE

From Encyclopedia of Post-Colonial Literatures in English
The origins of South African poetry in English are usually traced to the 1820s. MORE

From The New 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. MORE

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. MORE

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. MORE

Argentine poet, critic, and short-story writer, b. Buenos Aires. Borges has been widely hailed as the foremost contemporary Spanish-American writer. MORE

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. MORE

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. MORE

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. MORE

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. MORE

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. MORE

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. MORE

German poet, b. Prague, the greatest lyric poet of modern Germany. Rilke's youth at military and business school was not happy. MORE

Polish poet, awarded a Nobel Prize for Literature in 1996. Her work is particularly noted for its careful choice of words and universal themes. MORE