Sylvia Townsend Warner (6 December 1893– 1 May 1978) was an English novelist and poet. She also made a contribution to musicology as a young woman. Life Sylvia Nora Townsend Warner was born at Harrow on the Hill, Middlesex, the only child of George Townsend Warner and his wife Eleanor “Nora” Mary (née Hudleston). Her father was a house-master at Harrow School and was, for many years, associated with the prestigious Harrow History Prize which was renamed the Townsend Warner History Prize in his honour, after his death in 1916. As a child, Townsend Warner was home-schooled by her father. She enjoyed a seemingly idyllic childhood in rural Devonshire, but was strongly affected by her father’s death. She moved to London and worked in a munitions factory at the outbreak of World War I. Warner was friendly with a number of the “Bright young things” of the 1920s. Her first major success was the novel Lolly Willowes. In 1923, she met T. F. Powys, whose writing influenced her own and whose work she in turn encouraged. It was at Powys’ home that Warner, in 1930, first met Valentine Ackland, a young poet; the two women fell in love and settled at Frome Vauchurch, Dorset. Alarmed by the growing threat of fascism, they were active in the Communist Party, and in 1937 visited Valencia and Benicàssim, in Spain, on behalf of the Red Cross during the Civil War. They lived together from 1930 until Ackland’s death in 1969. Ackland and Warner are buried together at St Nicholas, Chaldon Herring, Dorset. Warner’s political engagement continued for the rest of her life, even after she became disillusioned with communism. Work Early in her career Warner researched 15th and 16th century music. From 1917 she was in regular employment as one of the editors of Tudor Church Music, ten volumes published by Oxford University Press in the 1920s with the support of the Carnegie UK Trust. She obtained the work through the influence of her lover and music teacher Sir Percy Buck, who was on the editorial committee. The lead editor was initially Sir Richard Terry, who as the Master of Music at Westminster Cathedral, had been a pioneer in the revival of Tudor vocal repertoire. Warner was involved in travelling to study source material and in transcribing the music into modern musical notation. Warner also published on the subject of musical notation including a contribution to the Oxford History of Music (in the introductory volume of 1929). In 1934 she published a joint collection of poems with Ackland, Whether a Dove or a Seagull. She was encouraged to write fiction by David Garnett. Warner’s novels included Lolly Willowes (1926), Mr Fortune’s Maggot (1927), Summer Will Show (1936), and The Corner That Held Them (1948). Recurring themes are evident in a number of her works. These include a rejection of Christianity (in Mr Fortune’s Maggot, and in Lolly Willowes, where the protagonist becomes a witch); the position of women in patriarchal societies (Lolly Willowes, Summer Will Show, The Corner that Held Them); ambiguous sexuality, or bisexuality (Lolly Willowes, Mr Fortune’s Maggot, Summer Will Show); and lyrical descriptions of landscape. Mr Fortune’s Maggot, about a missionary in the Pacific Islands, has been described as a “satirical, anti-imperialist novel”. In Summer Will Show, the heroine, Sophia Willoughby, travels to Paris during the 1848 Revolution and falls in love with a woman. Warner’s short stories include the collections A Moral Ending and Other Stories, The Salutation, More Joy in Heaven, The Cat’s Cradle Book, A Garland of Straw, The Museum of Cheats. Winter in the Air, A Spirit Rises, A Stranger with a Bag, The Innocent and the Guilty, and One Thing Leading to Another. Her final work was a series of linked short stories set in the supernatural Kingdoms of Elfin. Many of these stories were published in The New Yorker. In addition to fiction, Warner wrote anti-fascist articles for such leftist publications as Time and Tide and Left Review. After the death of the novelist T. H. White, Warner was given access to his papers. She published a biography which The New York Times declared “a small masterpiece which may well be read long after the writings of its subject have been forgotten.” White’s long-time friend and literary agent, David Higham, however, questioned Warner’s work, suggesting a bias in her approach due to her own homosexuality: he gave Warner the address of one of White’s lovers “so that she could get in touch with someone so important in Tim’s story. But she never, the girl told me, took that step. So she was able to present Tim in such a light that a reviewer could call him a raging homosexual. Perhaps a heterosexual affair would have made her blush.” Warner produced several books of poetry, including Opus 7, a book-length pastoral poem about an elderly female flower-seller. Although Warner never wrote an autobiography, Scenes of Childhood was compiled after her death on 1 May 1978 at age 84, based on short reminiscences published over the years in the New Yorker. She also translated Contre Saint-Beuve by Marcel Proust from the original French into English. In the 1970s, she became known as a significant writer of feminist or lesbian sentiment, and her novels were among the earlier ones to be revived by Virago Press. Selected letters of Warner and Valentine Ackland have been published twice: Wendy Mulford edited a collection titled This Narrow Place in 1988, and ten years later Susanna Pinney published another selection, Jealousy in Connecticut.

Just getting back into a little bit of fun poetry!

John Wesley (/ˈwɛsli, ˈwɛzli/; 28 June [O.S. 17 June] 1703– 2 March 1791) was an Anglican minister and theologian who, with his brother Charles and fellow cleric George Whitefield, is credited with the foundation of the evangelical movement known as Methodism. His work and writings also played a leading role in the development of the Holiness movement and Pentecostalism. Educated at Charterhouse School and Oxford University, Wesley was elected a fellow of Lincoln College, Oxford in 1726 and ordained a priest two years later. Returning to Oxford in 1729 after serving as curate at his father’s parish, he led the Holy Club, a society formed for the purpose of study and the pursuit of a devout Christian life; it had been founded by his brother Charles, and counted George Whitefield among its members. After an unsuccessful ministry of two years at Savannah in the Georgia Colony, Wesley returned to London and joined a religious society led by Moravian Christians. On 24 May 1738 he experienced what has come to be called his evangelical conversion, when he felt his “heart strangely warmed”. He subsequently departed from the Moravians, beginning his own ministry. A key step in the development of Wesley’s ministry was, like Whitefield, to travel and preach outdoors. In contrast to Whitefield’s Calvinism, Wesley embraced the Arminian doctrines that dominated the Church of England at the time. Moving across Great Britain and Ireland, he helped form and organise small Christian groups that developed intensive and personal accountability, discipleship and religious instruction. Most importantly, he appointed itinerant, unordained evangelists to travel and preach as he did and to care for these groups of people. Under Wesley’s direction, Methodists became leaders in many social issues of the day, including prison reform and the abolition of slavery. Although he was not a systematic theologian, Wesley argued for the notion of Christian perfection and against Calvinism– and, in particular, against its doctrine of predestination. He held that, in this life, Christians could achieve a state where the love of God “reigned supreme in their hearts”, giving them outward holiness. His evangelicalism, firmly grounded in sacramental theology, maintained that means of grace were the manner by which God sanctifies and transforms the believer, encouraging people to experience Jesus Christ personally. Throughout his life, Wesley remained within the established Anglican church, insisting that the Methodist movement lay well within its tradition. Although sometimes maverick in his interpretation and use of church policy, he became widely respected and, by the end of his life, had been described as “the best loved man in England”. Early life John Wesley was born in 1703 in Epworth, 23 miles (37 km) north-west of Lincoln, as the fifteenth child of Samuel Wesley and his wife Susanna Wesley (née Annesley). Samuel Wesley was a graduate of the University of Oxford and a poet who, from 1696, was rector of Epworth. He married Susanna, the twenty-fifth child of Samuel Annesley, a dissenting minister, in 1689. Ultimately, she bore him nineteen children, of which nine lived beyond infancy. She and Samuel Wesley had become members of the Church of England as young adults. As in many families at the time, Wesley’s parents gave their children their early education. Each child, including the girls, was taught to read as soon as they could walk and talk. They were expected to become proficient in Latin and Greek and to have learned major portions of the New Testament by heart. Susanna Wesley examined each child before the midday meal and before evening prayers. Children were not allowed to eat between meals and were interviewed singularly by their mother one evening each week for the purpose of intensive spiritual instruction. In 1714, at age 11, Wesley was sent to the Charterhouse School in London (under the mastership of John King from 1715), where he lived the studious, methodical and, for a while, religious life in which he had been trained at home. Apart from his disciplined upbringing, a rectory fire which occurred on 9 February 1709, when Wesley was five years old, left an indelible impression. Some time after 11:00 p.m., the rectory roof caught on fire. Sparks falling on the children’s beds and cries of “fire” from the street roused the Wesleys who managed to shepherd all their children out of the house except for John who was left stranded on the second floor. With stairs aflame and the roof about to collapse, Wesley was lifted out of the second floor window by a parishioner standing on another man’s shoulders. Wesley later utilised the phrase, “a brand plucked out of the fire”, quoting Zechariah 3:2, to describe the incident. This childhood deliverance subsequently became part of the Wesley legend, attesting to his special destiny and extraordinary work. Education In June 1720, Wesley entered Christ Church, Oxford. In 1724, Wesley graduated as a Bachelor of Arts and decided to pursue a Master of Arts degree. He was ordained a deacon on 25 September 1725, holy orders being a necessary step toward becoming a fellow and tutor at the university. In the year of his ordination he read Thomas à Kempis and Jeremy Taylor, and began to seek the religious truths which underlay the great revival of the 18th century. The reading of Law’s Christian Perfection and A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life gave him, he said, a sublimer view of the law of God; and he resolved to keep it, inwardly and outwardly, as sacredly as possible, believing that in obedience he would find salvation. He pursued a rigidly methodical and abstemious life, studied the Scriptures, and performed his religious duties diligently, depriving himself so that he would have alms to give. He began to seek after holiness of heart and life. In March 1726, Wesley was unanimously elected a fellow of Lincoln College, Oxford. This carried with it the right to a room at the college and regular salary. While continuing his studies, Wesley taught Greek, lectured on the New Testament and moderated daily disputations at the university. However, a call to ministry intruded upon his academic career. In August 1727, after taking his master’s degree, Wesley returned to Epworth. His father had requested his assistance in serving the neighbouring cure of Wroote. Ordained a priest on 22 September 1728, Wesley served as a parish curate for two years. He returned to Oxford in November 1729 at the request of the Rector of Lincoln College and to maintain his status as junior Fellow. Holy Club During Wesley’s absence, his younger brother Charles (1707–88) matriculated at Christ Church. Along with two fellow students, he formed a small club for the purpose of study and the pursuit of a devout Christian life. On Wesley’s return, he became the leader of the group which increased somewhat in number and greatly in commitment. The group met daily from six until nine for prayer, psalms, and reading of the Greek New Testament. They prayed every waking hour for several minutes and each day for a special virtue. While the church’s prescribed attendance was only three times a year, they took communion every Sunday. They fasted on Wednesdays and Fridays until three o’clock as was commonly observed in the ancient church. In 1730, the group began the practice of visiting prisoners in jail. They preached, educated, and relieved jailed debtors whenever possible, and cared for the sick. Given the low ebb of spirituality in Oxford at that time, it was not surprising that Wesley’s group provoked a negative reaction. They were considered to be religious “enthusiasts” which in the context of the time meant religious fanatics. University wits styled them the “Holy Club,” a title of derision. Currents of opposition became a furor following the mental breakdown and death of a group member, William Morgan. In response to the charge that “rigorous fasting” had hastened his death, Wesley noted that Morgan had left off fasting a year and a half since. In the same letter, which was widely circulated, Wesley referred to the name “Methodist” which “some of our neighbors are pleased to compliment us.” That name was used by an anonymous author in a published pamphlet (1733) describing Wesley and his group, “The Oxford Methodists”. For all of his outward piety, Wesley sought to cultivate his inner holiness or at least his sincerity as evidence of being a true Christian. A list of “General Questions” which he developed in 1730 evolved into an elaborate grid by 1734 in which he recorded his daily activities hour-by-hour, resolutions he had broken or kept, and ranked his hourly “temper of devotion” on a scale of 1 to 9. Wesley also regarded the contempt with which he and his group were held to be a mark of a true Christian. As he put it in a letter to his father, “Till he be thus contemned, no man is in a state of salvation.” Journey to Savannah, Georgia On 14 October 1735, Wesley and his brother Charles sailed on The Simmonds from Gravesend in Kent for Savannah in the Province of Georgia in the American colonies at the request of James Oglethorpe, who had founded the colony in 1733 on behalf of the Trustees for the Establishment of the Colony of Georgia in America. Oglethorpe wanted Wesley to be the minister of the newly formed Savannah parish, a new town laid out in accordance with the famous Oglethorpe Plan. It was on the voyage to the colonies that the Wesleys first came into contact with Moravian settlers. Wesley was influenced by their deep faith and spirituality rooted in pietism. At one point in the voyage a storm came up and broke the mast off the ship. While the English panicked, the Moravians calmly sang hymns and prayed. This experience led Wesley to believe that the Moravians possessed an inner strength which he lacked. The deeply personal religion that the Moravian pietists practised heavily influenced Wesley’s theology of Methodism. Wesley arrived in the colony in February 1736. He approached the Georgia mission as a High Churchman, seeing it as an opportunity to revive “primitive Christianity” in a primitive environment. Although his primary goal was to evangelise the Native Americans, a shortage of clergy in the colony largely limited his ministry to European settlers in Savannah. While his ministry has often been judged to have been a failure in comparison to his later success as a leader in the Evangelical Revival, Wesley gathered around him a group of devoted Christians who met in a number of small group religious societies. At the same time, attendance at church services and communion increased over the course of nearly two years in which he served as Savannah’s parish priest. Nonetheless, Wesley’s High Church ministry was controversial amongst the colonists and it ended in disappointment after Wesley fell in love with a young woman named Sophia Hopkey. Following her marriage to William Williamson, Wesley believed Sophia’s former zeal for practising the Christian faith declined. In strictly applying the rubrics of the Book of Common Prayer, Wesley denied her communion after she failed to signify to him in advance her intention of taking it. As a result, legal proceedings against him ensued in which a clear resolution seemed unlikely. In December 1737, Wesley fled the colony and returned to England. It has been widely recognised that one of the most significant accomplishments of Wesley’s Georgia mission was his publication of a Collection of Psalms and Hymns. The Collection was the first Anglican hymnal published in America, and the first of many hymn-books Wesley published. It included five hymns he translated from German. Wesley’s “Aldersgate experience” Wesley returned to England depressed and beaten. It was at this point that he turned to the Moravians. Both he and Charles received counsel from the young Moravian missionary Peter Boehler, who was temporarily in England awaiting permission to depart for Georgia himself. Wesley’s noted “Aldersgate experience” of 24 May 1738, at a Moravian meeting in Aldersgate Street, London, in which he heard a reading of Martin Luther’s preface to the Epistle to the Romans, revolutionised the character and method of his ministry. The previous week he had been highly impressed by the sermon of John Heylyn, whom he was assisting in the service at St Mary-le-Strand. Earlier that day, he had heard the choir at St. Paul’s Cathedral singing Psalm 130, where the Psalmist calls to God “Out of the depths.” But it was still a depressed Wesley who attended a service on the evening of 24 May. Wesley recounted his Aldersgate experience in his journal: “In the evening I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate Street, where one was reading Luther’s Preface to the Epistle to the Romans. About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation, and an assurance was given me that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.” A few weeks later, Wesley preached a sermon on the doctrine of personal salvation by faith, which was followed by another, on God’s grace “free in all, and free for all.” Daniel L. Burnett writes: “The significance of Wesley’s Aldersgate Experience is monumental. It is the pivotal point in his life and the Methodist movement. Without it the names of Wesley and Methodism would likely be nothing more than obscure footnotes in the pages of church history.” Daniel L. Burnett calls this event Wesley’s “Evangelical Conversion”. It is commemorated in Methodist churches as Aldersgate Day. After Aldersgate: Working with the Moravians Wesley allied himself with the Moravian society in Fetter Lane. In 1738 he went to Herrnhut, the Moravian headquarters in Germany, to study. On his return to England, Wesley drew up rules for the “bands” into which the Fetter Lane Society was divided and published a collection of hymns for them. He met frequently with this and other religious societies in London but did not preach often in 1738, because most of the parish churches were closed to him. Wesley’s Oxford friend, the evangelist George Whitefield, was also excluded from the churches of Bristol upon his return from America. Going to the neighbouring village of Kingswood, in February 1739, Whitefield preached in the open air to a company of miners. Later he preached in Whitefield’s Tabernacle. Wesley hesitated to accept Whitefield’s call to copy this bold step. Overcoming his scruples, he preached the first time at Whitefield’s invitation sermon in the open air, near Bristol, in April 1739. Wesley wrote, I could scarce reconcile myself to this strange way of preaching in the fields, of which he [Whitefield] set me an example on Sunday; having been all my life till very lately so tenacious of every point relating to decency and order, that I should have thought the saving of souls almost a sin if it had not been done in a church. Wesley was unhappy about the idea of field preaching as he believed Anglican liturgy had much to offer in its practice. Earlier in his life he would have thought that such a method of saving souls was “almost a sin.” He recognised the open-air services were successful in reaching men and women who would not enter most churches. From then on he took the opportunities to preach wherever an assembly could be brought together, more than once using his father’s tombstone at Epworth as a pulpit. Wesley continued for fifty years– entering churches when he was invited, and taking his stand in the fields, in halls, cottages, and chapels, when the churches would not receive him. Late in 1739 Wesley broke with the Moravians in London. Wesley had helped them organise the Fetter Lane Society, and those converted by his preaching and that of his brother and Whitefield had become members of their bands. But he believed they fell into heresy by supporting quietism, so he decided to form his own followers into a separate society. “Thus,” he wrote, “without any previous plan, began the Methodist Society in England.” He soon formed similar societies in Bristol and Kingswood, and wherever Wesley and his friends made converts. Persecutions and lay preaching From 1739 onward, Wesley and the Methodists were persecuted by clergy and magistrates for various reasons. Though Wesley had been ordained an Anglican priest, many other Methodist leaders had not received ordination. And for his own part, Wesley flouted many regulations of the Church of England concerning parish boundaries and who had authority to preach. This was seen as a social threat that disregarded institutions. Clergy attacked them in sermons and in print, and at times mobs attacked them. Wesley and his followers continued to work among the neglected and needy. They were denounced as promulgators of strange doctrines, fomenters of religious disturbances; as blind fanatics, leading people astray, claiming miraculous gifts, attacking the clergy of the Church of England, and trying to re-establish Catholicism. Wesley felt that the church failed to call sinners to repentance, that many of the clergy were corrupt, and that people were perishing in their sins. He believed he was commissioned by God to bring about revival in the church, and no opposition, persecution, or obstacles could prevail against the divine urgency and authority of this commission. The prejudices of his high-church training, his strict notions of the methods and proprieties of public worship, his views of the apostolic succession and the prerogatives of the priest, even his most cherished convictions, were not allowed to stand in the way. Unwilling that people should perish in their sins and unable to reach them from church pulpits, following the example set by George Whitefield, Wesley began field preaching. Seeing that he and the few clergy co-operating with him could not do the work that needed to be done, he was led, as early as 1739, to approve local preachers. He evaluated and approved men who were not ordained by the Anglican Church to preach and do pastoral work. This expansion of lay preachers was one of the keys of the growth of Methodism. Chapels and organisations As his societies needed houses to worship in, Wesley began to provide chapels, first in Bristol at the New Room, then in London (first The Foundery and then Wesley’s Chapel) and elsewhere. The Foundery was an early chapel utilised by Wesley. The location of the Foundery shown on an 18th-century map, where it rests between Tabernacle Street and Worship Street in the Moorfields area of London. When the Wesleys spotted the building atop Windmill Hill, north of Finsbury Fields, the structure which previously cast brass guns and mortars for the Royal Ordnance had been sitting vacant for 23 years; it has been abandoned because of an explosion on 10 May 1716. The Bristol chapel (built in 1739) was at first in the hands of trustees. A large debt was contracted, and Wesley’s friends urged him to keep it under his own control, so the deed was cancelled and he became sole trustee. Following this precedent, all Methodist chapels were committed in trust to him until by a “deed of declaration”, all his interests in them were transferred to a body of preachers called the “Legal Hundred”. When disorder arose among some members of the societies, Wesley adopted giving tickets to members, with their names written by his own hand. These were renewed every three months. Those deemed unworthy did not receive new tickets and dropped out of the society without disturbance. The tickets were regarded as commendatory letters. When the debt on a chapel became a burden, it was proposed that one in 12 members should collect offerings regularly from the 11 allotted to him. Out of this grew the Methodist class-meeting system in 1742. In order to keep the disorderly out of the societies, Wesley established a probationary system. He undertook to visit each society regularly in what became the quarterly visitation, or conference. As the number of societies increased, Wesley could not keep personal contact, so in 1743 he drew up a set of “General Rules” for the “United Societies”. These were the nucleus of the Methodist Discipline, still the basis. Over time, a shifting pattern of societies, circuits, quarterly meetings, annual Conferences, classes, bands, and select societies took shape. At the local level, there were numerous societies of different sizes which were grouped into circuits to which traveling preachers were appointed for two-year periods. Circuit officials met quarterly under a senior traveling preacher or “assistant.” Conferences with Wesley, traveling preachers and others were convened annually for the purpose of coordinating doctrine and discipline for the entire connection. Classes of a dozen or so society members under a leader met weekly for spiritual fellowship and guidance. In early years, there were “bands” of the spiritually gifted who consciously pursued perfection. Those who were regarded to have achieved it were grouped in select societies or bands. In 1744, there were 77 such members. There also was a category of penitents which consisted of backsliders. As the number of preachers and preaching-places increased, doctrinal and administrative matters needed to be discussed; so John and Charles Wesley, along with four other clergy and four lay preachers, met for consultation in London in 1744. This was the first Methodist conference; subsequently, the conference (with Wesley as its president) became the ruling body of the Methodist movement. Two years later, to help preachers work more systematically and societies receive services more regularly, Wesley appointed “helpers” to definitive circuits. Each circuit included at least 30 appointments a month. Believing that the preacher’s efficiency was promoted by his being changed from one circuit to another every year or two, Wesley established the “itinerancy” and insisted that his preachers submit to its rules. Ordination of ministers As the societies multiplied, they adopted the elements of an ecclesiastical system. The divide between Wesley and the Church of England widened. The question of division from the Church of England was urged by some of his preachers and societies, but most strenuously opposed by his brother Charles. Wesley refused to leave the Church of England, believing that Anglicanism was "with all her blemishes, [...] nearer the Scriptural plans than any other in Europe". In 1745 Wesley wrote that he would make any concession which his conscience permitted, in order to live in peace with the clergy. He could not give up the doctrine of an inward and present salvation by faith itself. He would not stop preaching, nor dissolve the societies, nor end preaching by lay members. As a cleric of the established church he had no plans to go further. When, in 1746, Wesley read Lord King on the primitive church, he became convinced that the concept of apostolic succession in Anglicanism was a “fable”. He wrote that he was “a scriptural episkopos as much as many men in England.” Many years later, Edward Stillingfleet’s Irenicon led him to decide that ordination could be valid when performed by a presbyter rather than a bishop. Nevertheless, many believe that Wesley was consecrated a bishop in 1763 by Erasmus of Arcadia, and that Wesley could not openly announce his episcopal consecration without incurring the penalty of the Præmunire Act. In 1784, he believed he could not longer wait for the Bishop of London to ordain someone for the American Methodists, who were without the sacraments after the American War of Independence. The Church of England had been disestablished in the United States, where it had been the state church in most of the southern colonies. The Church of England had not yet appointed a United States bishop to what would become the Protestant Episcopal Church in America. Wesley ordained Thomas Coke by the laying on of hands although Coke was already a priest in the Church of England. Wesley appointed him to be superintendent of Methodists in the United States. He also ordained Richard Whatcoat and Thomas Vasey as presbyters. Whatcoat and Vasey sailed to America with Coke. Wesley intended that Coke and Asbury (whom Coke ordained) should ordain others in the newly founded Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States. His brother Charles grew alarmed and begged Wesley to stop before he had “quite broken down the bridge” and not embitter his [Charles’] last moments on earth, nor “leave an indelible blot on our memory.” Wesley replied that he had not separated from the church, nor did he intend to, but he must and would save as many souls as he could while alive, “without being careful about what may possibly be when I die.” Although Wesley rejoiced that the Methodists in America were free, he advised his English followers to remain in the established church and he himself died within it. Doctrines, theology and advocacy The 20th-century Wesley scholar Albert Outler argued in his introduction to the 1964 collection John Wesley that Wesley developed his theology by using a method that Outler termed the Wesleyan Quadrilateral. In this method, Wesley believed that the living core of the Christian faith was revealed in Scripture; and the Bible was the sole foundational source of theological or doctrinal development. The centrality of Scripture was so important for Wesley that he called himself “a man of one book”– meaning the Bible– although he was well-read for his day. However, he believed that doctrine had to be in keeping with Christian orthodox tradition. So, tradition was considered the second aspect of the Quadrilateral. Wesley contended that a part of the theological method would involve experiential faith. In other words, truth would be vivified in personal experience of Christians (overall, not individually), if it were really truth. And every doctrine must be able to be defended rationally. He did not divorce faith from reason. Tradition, experience and reason, however, were subject always to Scripture, Wesley argued, because only there is the Word of God revealed “so far as it is necessary for our salvation.” The doctrines which Wesley emphasised in his sermons and writings are prevenient grace, present personal salvation by faith, the witness of the Spirit, and sanctification. Prevenient grace was the theological underpinning of his belief that all persons were capable of being saved by faith in Christ. Unlike the Calvinists of his day, Wesley did not believe in predestination, that is, that some persons had been elected by God for salvation and others for damnation. He understood that Christian orthodoxy insisted that salvation was only possible by the sovereign grace of God. He expressed his understanding of humanity’s relationship to God as utter dependence upon God’s grace. God was at work to enable all people to be capable of coming to faith by empowering humans to have actual existential freedom of response to God. Wesley defined the witness of the Spirit as: “an inward impression on the soul of believers, whereby the Spirit of God directly testifies to their spirit that they are the children of God.” He based this doctrine upon certain Biblical passages (see Romans 8:15–16 as an example). This doctrine was closely related to his belief that salvation had to be “personal.” In his view, a person must ultimately believe the Good News for himself or herself; no one could be in relation to God for another. Sanctification he described in 1790 as the "grand depositum which God has lodged with the people called `Methodists’." Wesley taught that sanctification was obtainable after justification by faith, between justification and death. He did not contend for “sinless perfection”; rather, he contended that a Christian could be made “perfect in love”. (Wesley studied Eastern Orthodoxy and particularly the doctrine of Theosis). This love would mean, first of all, that a believer’s motives, rather than being self-centred, would be guided by the deep desire to please God. One would be able to keep from committing what Wesley called, “sin rightly so-called.” By this he meant a conscious or intentional breach of God’s will or laws. A person could still be able to sin, but intentional or wilful sin could be avoided. Secondly, to be made perfect in love meant, for Wesley, that a Christian could live with a primary guiding regard for others and their welfare. He based this on Christ’s quote that the second great command is “to love your neighbour as you love yourself.” In his view, this orientation would cause a person to avoid any number of sins against his neighbour. This love, plus the love for God that could be the central focus of a person’s faith, would be what Wesley referred to as “a fulfilment of the law of Christ.” Advocacy of Arminianism Wesley entered controversies as he tried to enlarge church practice. The most notable of his controversies was that on Calvinism. His father was of the Arminian school in the church. Wesley came to his own conclusions while in college and expressed himself strongly against the doctrines of Calvinistic election and reprobation. His system of thought has become known as Wesleyan Arminianism, the foundations of which were laid by Wesley and Fletcher. Whitefield inclined to Calvinism. In his first tour in America, he embraced the views of the New England School of Calvinism. When in 1739 Wesley preached a sermon on Freedom of Grace, attacking the Calvinistic understanding of predestination as blasphemous, as it represented “God as worse than the devil,” Whitefield asked him not to repeat or publish the discourse, as he did not want a dispute. Wesley published his sermon anyway. Whitefield was one of many who responded. The two men separated their practice in 1741. Wesley wrote that those who held to unlimited atonement did not desire separation, but “those who held 'particular redemption’ would not hear of any accommodation.” Whitefield, Harris, Cennick, and others, became the founders of Calvinistic Methodism. Whitefield and Wesley, however, were soon back on friendly terms, and their friendship remained unbroken although they travelled different paths. When someone asked Whitefield if he thought he would see Wesley in heaven, Whitefield replied, “I fear not, for he will be so near the eternal throne and we at such a distance, we shall hardly get sight of him.” In 1770, the controversy broke out anew with violence and bitterness, as people’s view of God related to their views of men and their possibilities. Augustus Montague Toplady, Rowland, Richard Hill and others were engaged on one side, while Wesley and Fletcher stood on the other. Toplady was editor of The Gospel Magazine, which had articles covering the controversy. In 1778, Wesley began the publication of The Arminian Magazine, not, he said, to convince Calvinists, but to preserve Methodists. He wanted to teach the truth that “God willeth all men to be saved.” A “lasting peace” could be secured in no other way. Support for abolitionism Later in his ministry, Wesley was a keen abolitionist, speaking out and writing against the slave trade. He published a pamphlet on slavery, titled Thoughts Upon Slavery, in 1774. To quote from one of his tracts against the slave trade: “Liberty is the right of every human creature, as soon as he breathes the vital air; and no human law can deprive him of that right which he derives from the law of nature”. Wesley was a friend of John Newton and William Wilberforce who were also influential in the abolition of slavery in Britain. Personality and activities John Wesley travelled generally on horseback, preaching two or three times each day. Stephen Tomkins writes that he "rode 250,000 miles, gave away 30,000 pounds,... and preached more than 40,000 sermons... ” He formed societies, opened chapels, examined and commissioned preachers, administered aid charities, prescribed for the sick, helped to pioneer the use of electric shock for the treatment of illness, superintended schools and orphanages, and received at least £20,000 for his publications but used little of it for himself. Wesley practiced a vegetarian diet and abstained from wine. Wesley warned against the dangers of alcohol abuse in his famous sermon, “The Use of Money,” and in his letter to an alcoholic. Following his lead, Methodist churches became pioneers in the Temperance movement of the 19th and 20th centuries. After attending a performance in Bristol Cathedral in 1758, Wesley said: “I went to the cathedral to hear Mr. Handel’s Messiah. I doubt if that congregation was ever so serious at a sermon as they were during this performance. In many places, especially several of the choruses, it exceeded my expectation.” He is described as below medium height, well proportioned, strong, with a bright eye, a clear complexion, and a saintly, intellectual face. Wesley married very unhappily at the age of 48 to a widow, Mary Vazeille, described as “a well-to-do widow and mother of four children.” The couple had no children. Vazeille left him 15 years later. John Singleton writes: "By 1758 she had left him– unable to cope, it is said, with the competition for his time and devotion presented by the ever-burgeoning Methodist movement. Molly, as she was known, was to return and leave him again on several occasions before their final separation." Wesley wryly reported in his journal, “I did not forsake her, I did not dismiss her, I will not recall her.” In 1770, at the death of George Whitefield, Wesley wrote a memorial sermon which praised Whitefield’s admirable qualities and acknowledged the two men’s differences: “There are many doctrines of a less essential nature... In these we may think and let think; we may ‘agree to disagree.’ But, meantime, let us hold fast the essentials...” Wesley was the first to put the phrase “agree to disagree” in print. Death Wesley died on 2 March 1791, in his 87th year. As he lay dying, his friends gathered around him, Wesley grasped their hands and said repeatedly, “Farewell, farewell.” At the end, he said, “The best of all is, God is with us”, lifted his arms and raised his feeble voice again, repeating the words, “The best of all is, God is with us.” He was entombed at Wesley’s Chapel, which he built in City Road, London, in England. The site also is now both a place of worship and a visitor attraction, incorporating the Museum of Methodism and John Wesley’s House. Because of his charitable nature he died poor, leaving as the result of his life’s work 135,000 members and 541 itinerant preachers under the name “Methodist”. It has been said that “when John Wesley was carried to his grave, he left behind him a good library of books, a well-worn clergyman’s gown” and the Methodist Church. Literary work Wesley was a logical thinker and expressed himself clearly, concisely and forcefully in writing. His written sermons are characterised by spiritual earnestness and simplicity. They are doctrinal but not dogmatic. His Notes on the New Testament (1755) are enlightening. Both the Sermons (about 140) and the Notes are doctrinal standards. Wesley was a fluent, powerful and effective preacher. He usually preached spontaneously and briefly, though occasionally at great length. As an organiser, a religious leader and a statesman, he was eminent. He knew how to lead and control men to achieve his purposes. He used his power, not to provoke rebellion, but to inspire love. His mission was to spread “Scriptural holiness”; his means and plans were such as Providence indicated. The course thus mapped out for him he pursued with a determination from which nothing could distract him. Wesley’s prose Works were first collected by himself (32 vols., Bristol, 1771–74, frequently reprinted in editions varying greatly in the number of volumes). His chief prose works are a standard publication in seven octavo volumes of the Methodist Book Concern, New York. The Poetical Works of John and Charles, ed. G. Osborn, appeared in 13 vols., London, 1868–72. In addition to his Sermons and Notes are his Journals (originally published in 20 parts, London, 1740–89; new ed. by N. Curnock containing notes from unpublished diaries, 6 vols., vols. i.-ii., London and New York, 1909–11); The Doctrine of Original Sin (Bristol, 1757; in reply to Dr. John Taylor of Norwich); "An Earnest Appeal to Men of Reason and Religion (originally published in three parts; 2d ed., Bristol, 1743), an elaborate defence of Methodism, describing the evils of the times in society and the church; a Plain Account of Christian Perfection (1766). Wesley adapted the Book of Common Prayer for use by American Methodists. In his Watch Night service, he made use of a pietist prayer now generally known as the Wesley Covenant Prayer, perhaps his most famous contribution to Christian liturgy. He also was a noted hymn-writer, translator and compiler of a hymnal. Wesley also wrote on divine physics, such as in Desideratum, subtitled Electricity made Plain and Useful by a Lover of Mankind and of Common Sense (1759). In spite of the proliferation of his literary output, Wesley was challenged for plagiarism for borrowing heavily from an essay by Samuel Johnson, publishing in March 1775. Initially denying the charge, Wesley later recanted and apologised officially. Legacy Wesley continues to be the primary theological influence on Methodists and Methodist-heritage groups the world over; the largest bodies being the United Methodist Church, the Methodist Church of Great Britain and the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Wesleyan teachings also serve as a basis for the holiness movement, which includes denominations like the Wesleyan Church, the Free Methodist Church, the Church of the Nazarene, the Christian and Missionary Alliance, the Church of God (Anderson, IN), and several smaller groups, and from which Pentecostalism and parts of the Charismatic Movement are offshoots. Wesley’s call to personal and social holiness continues to challenge Christians who attempt to discern what it means to participate in the Kingdom of God. In addition, he refined Arminianism with a strong evangelical emphasis on the Reformed doctrine of justification by faith. He is commemorated in the Calendar of Saints of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America on 2 March with his brother Charles. The Wesley brothers are also commemorated on 3 March in the Calendar of Saints of the Episcopal Church and on 24 May in the Anglican calendar. Wesley’s legacy is preserved in Kingswood School, which he founded in 1748 in order to educate the children of the growing number of Methodist preachers. Also, one of the four form houses at the St Marylebone Church of England School, London, is named after John Wesley. In 2002, Wesley was listed at number 50 on the BBC’s list of the 100 Greatest Britons. In 1831, Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut, was the first institution of higher education in the United States to be named after Wesley. The now secular institution was founded as an all-male Methodist college. About 20 unrelated colleges and universities in the US were subsequently named after him. In film In 1954, the Radio and Film Commission of the Methodist Church in cooperation with J. Arthur Rank produced the film John Wesley. The film was a live-action re-telling of the story of the life of John Wesley, with Leonard Sachs as Wesley. In 2009, a more ambitious feature film, Wesley, was released by Foundery Pictures, starring Burgess Jenkins as John Wesley, with June Lockhart as Susanna Wesley, R. Keith Harris as Charles Wesley, and the Golden Globe winner Kevin McCarthy as Bishop Ryder. The film was directed by the award-winning film-maker John Jackman. Works * A Collection of Different Forms of Prayer for Every Day in the Week (1733) * A Treatise on Christian Prudence Extracted from Mr. Norris (1734) * An Earnest Appeal to Men of Reason and Religion (originally published in three parts; 2d ed., Bristol, 1743) * Primitive Physic, Or, An Easy and Natural Method of Curing Most Diseases, London: 1744 * Notes on the New Testament 1755 * The Doctrine of Original Sin (Bristol, 1757; in reply to Dr. John Taylor of Norwich) * The Desideratum; or, Electricity Made Plain and Useful (1759) London: Bailliere, Tindall, and Cox. Published 1871. (digital copy) * A Plain Account of Christian Perfection (1766) * Works (32 vols., Bristol, 1771–74. Printed by William Pine. This edition has many errors.) * Works (17 Vols., 1809-1813, Edited by Joseph Benson. This is better than the preceding, but is still very erroneus.) * Works (14 Vols., 1827, edited by Thomas Jackson. At present, the standard edition.) * Works (7 Vols., 1831, an American Edition edited by John Emory, combining two volumes of the Jackson Edition into one. Containing two extra letters and more footnotes.) * Works (15 Vols., the Jackson Edition with an additional volume containing his Notes to the New Testament) * The Poetical Works of John and Charles, ed. G. Osborn, 13 vols., London, 1868–72 * Journals (originally published in 20 parts, London, 1740–89; new ed. by N. Curnock containing notes from unpublished diaries, 6 vols., vols. i.-ii., London and New York, 1909–11) References Wikipedia—https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wesley

I was born in the city, I have six siblings, I love to write poetry, I have done so since I was six, I wait tables, as many great artists have, I wish one day to be published, and hope that I will inspire a new generation of poets.

Agnes Ethelwyn Wetherald was born of English-Quaker parents at Rockwood, Ontario, April 26th, 1857. Her father was the late Rev. William Wetherald, who founded the Rockwood Academy about the middle of the last century, and was its principal for some years. He was a lover of good English, spoken and written, and his talented daughter has owed much to his careful teaching. He was the teacher whom the late James J. Hill, the railway magnate, had held in such grateful remembrance. Additional education was received by Miss Wetherald at the Friends' Boarding School, Union Springs, N.Y., and at Pickering College. Miss Wetherald began the writing of poetry later in life than most poets and her first book of verse, The House of the Trees and Other Poems, did not appear until 1895. This book at once gave her high rank among women poets. Prior to this, she had collaborated with G. Mercer Adam on writing and publishing a novel, An Algonquin Maiden, and had conducted the Woman's Department in The Globe, Toronto, under the nom de plume, 'Bel Thistlewaite.' In 1902, appeared her second volume of verse, Tangled in Stars, and, in 1904, her third volume, The Radiant Road. In the autumn of 1907, a collection of Miss Wetherald's best poems was issued, entitled, The Last Robin: Lyrics and Sonnets. It was warmly welcomed generally, by reviewers and lovers of poetry. The many exquisite gems therein so appealed to Earl Grey, the then Governor-General of Canada, that he wrote a personal letter of appreciation to the author, and purchased twenty-five copies of the first edition for distribution among his friends. For years Miss Wetherald has resided on the homestead farm, near the village of Fenwick, in Pelham Township, Weland county, Ontario, and there in the midst of a large orchard and other rural charms, has dreamed, and visioned, and sung, pouring out her soul in rare, sweet songs, with the naturalness of a bird. And like a bird she has a nest in a large willow tree, cunningly contrived by a nature-loving brother, where her muse broods contentedly, intertwining her spirit with every aspect of the beautiful environment.

As a Poet I must admit I am a student and admirer of the late Langston Hughes as well as many other poets and writers from different walks of life. I always enjoy writers that use poetry as a voice to speak out about social and spiritual issues. My poems are usually my inner expression of thoughts that I experience while on this spiritual journey called life.

Franz Wright (March 18, 1953– May 14, 2015) was an American poet. He and his father James Wright are the only parent/child pair to have won the Pulitzer Prize in the same category. Life and career Wright was born in Vienna, Austria. He graduated from Oberlin College in 1977. Wheeling Motel (Knopf, 2009), had selections put to music for the record Readings from Wheeling Motel. Wright wrote the lyrics to and performs the Clem Snide song "Encounter at 3AM" on the album Hungry Bird (2009). Wright’s most recent books include Kindertotenwald (Knopf, 2011), a collection of sixty-five prose poems concluding with a love poem to his wife, written while Wright had terminal lung cancer. The poem won Poetry magazine’s premier annual literary prize for best work published in the magazine during 2011. The prose poem collection was followed in 2012 by Buson: Haiku, a collection of translations of 30 haiku by the Japanese poet Yosa Buson, published in a limited edition of a few hundred copies by Tavern Books. . In 2013 Wright’s primary publisher, Knopf in New York, brought out another full length collection of verse and prose poems, F, which was begun in the ICU of a Boston hospital after excision of part of a lung. F was the most positively received to any of Wright’s work. Writing in the Huffington Post, Anis Shivani placed it among the best books of poetry yet produced by an American, and called Wright “our greatest contemporary poet.” In 2013 Wright recorded 15 prose poems from Kindertotenwald for inclusion in a series of improvisational concerts performed in European venues, arranged by David Sylvian, Stephan Mathieu and Christian Fennesz. Prior to his death, Wright had been working on a new manuscript. First its name was “Changed,” then “Axe in Blossom,” and has probably ended up taking the form of a chapbook available as of 2016, entitled, “The Toy Throne.” Wright has been anthologised in works such as The Best of the Best American Poetry as well as Czeslaw Milosz’s anthology A Book of Luminous Things Bearing the Mystery: Twenty Years of Image, and American Alphabets: 25 Contemporary Poets. Death Wright died of cancer at his home in Waltham, Massachusetts on May 14, 2015. Criticism Writing in the New York Review of Books, Helen Vendler said "Wright’s scale of experience, like Berryman’s, runs from the homicidal to the ecstatic... [His poems’] best forms of originality [are] deftness in patterning, startling metaphors, starkness of speech, compression of both pain and joy, and a stoic self-possession with the agonies and penalties of existence." Novelist Denis Johnson has said Wright’s poems “are like tiny jewels shaped by blunt, ruined fingers—miraculous gifts.” The Boston Review has called Wright’s poetry “among the most honest, haunting, and human being written today.” Critic Ernest Hilbert wrote for Random House’s magazine Bold Type that “Wright oscillates between direct and evasive dictions, between the barroom floor and the arts club podium, from aphoristic aside to icily poetic abstraction.” Walking to Martha’s Vineyard (2003) in particular, was well received. According to Publishers Weekly, the collection features "[h]eartfelt but often cryptic poems... fans will find Wright’s self-diagnostics moving throughout." The New York Times noted that Wright promises, and can deliver, great depths of feeling, while observing that Wright depends very much on our sense of his tone, and on our belief not just that he means what he says but that he has said something new...[on this score] Walking to Martha’s Vineyard sometimes succeeds.” Poet Jordan Davis, writing for The Constant Critic, suggested that Wright’s collection was so accomplished it would have to be kept “out of the reach of impulse kleptomaniacs.” Added Davis, “deader than deadpan, any particular Wright poem may not seem like much, until, that is, you read a few of them. Once the context kicks in, you may find yourself trying to track down every word he’s written.” Some critics were less welcoming. According to New Criterion critic William Logan, with whom Wright would later publicly feud, "[t]his poet is surprisingly vague about the specifics of his torment (most of his poems are shouts and curses in the dark). He was cruelly affected by the divorce of his parents, though perhaps after forty years there should be a statute of limitation... ‘The Only Animal,’ the most accomplished poem in the book, collapses into the same kitschy sanctimoniousness that puts nodding Jesus dolls on car dashboards." “Wright offers the crude, unprocessed sewage of suffering”, he comments. “He has drunk harder and drugged harder than any dozen poets in our health-conscious age, and paid the penalty in hospitals and mental wards.” The critical reception of Wright’s 2011 collection, Kindertotenwald (Knopf), has been positive on the whole. Writing in the Washington Independent Book Review, Grace Cavalieri speaks of the book as a departure from Wright’s best known poems. “The prose poems are intriguing thought patterns that show poetry as mental process... This is original material, and if a great poet cannot continue to be original, then he is really not all that great... In this text there is a joyfulness that energizes and makes us feel the writing as a purposeful surge. It is a life force. This is a good indicator of literary art... Memory and the past, mortality, longing, childhood, time, space, geography and loneliness, are all the poet’s playthings. In these conversations with himself, Franz Wright shows how the mind works with his feelings and his brain’s agility in its struggle with the heart.” Cultural critic for the Chicago Tribune Julia Keller says that Kindertotenwald is “ultimately about joy and grace and the possibility of redemption, about coming out whole on the other side of emotional catastrophe.” “This collection, like all of Wright’s book, combines familiar, colloquial phrases—the daily lingo you hear everywhere—with the sudden sharpness of a phrase you’ve never heard anywhere, but that sounds just as familiar, just as inevitable. These pieces are written in closely packed prose, like miniature short stories, but they have a fierce lilting beauty that marks them as poetry. Reading 'Kindertotenwald’ is like walking through a plate-glass window on purpose. There is—predictably—pain, but once you’ve made it a few steps past the threshold, you realize it wasn’t glass after all, only air, and that the shattering sound you heard was your own heart breaking. Healing, though, is possible. ”Soon, soon," the poet writes in “Nude With Handgun and Rosary,” “between one instant and the next, you will be well.” Awards * 1985, 1992 National Endowment for the Arts grant * 1989 Guggenheim Fellowship * 1991 Whiting Award * 1996 PEN/Voelcker Award for Poetry * 2004 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, for Walking to Martha’s Vineyard Selected works * * The Writing, Argos Books, 2015, ISBN 978-1-938247-09-5 * F, Knopf, 2013 * Kindertotenwald Alfred A. Knopf, 2011, ISBN 978-0-307-27280-5 * "7 Prose", Marick Press, 2010, ISBN 978-1934851-17-3 * Wheeling Motel Alfred A. Knopf, 2009, ISBN 9780307265685 * Earlier Poems, Random House, Inc., 2007, ISBN 978-0-307-26566-1 * God’s Silence, Knopf, 2006, ISBN 978-1-4000-4351-4 * Walking to Martha’s Vineyard Alfred A. Knopf, 2003, ISBN 978-0-375-41518-0 * The Beforelife A.A. Knopf, 2001, ISBN 978-0-375-41154-0 * Knell Short Line Editions, 1999 * ILL LIT: Selected & New Poems Oberlin College Press, 1998, ISBN 978-0-932440-83-9 * Rorschach test, Carnegie Mellon University Press, 1995, ISBN 978-0-88748-209-0 * The Night World and the Word Night Carnegie Mellon University Press, 1993, ISBN 978-0-88748-154-3 * Entry in an Unknown Hand Carnegie Mellon University Press, 1989, ISBN 978-0-88748-078-2 * Going North in Winter Gray House Press, 1986 * The One Whose Eyes Open When You Close Your Eyes Pym-Randall Press, 1982, ISBN 978-0-913219-35-5 * 8 Poems (1982) * The Earth Without You Cleveland State University Poetry Center, 1980, ISBN 9780914946236 * Tapping the White Cane of Solitude (1976) Translations * * The Unknown Rilke: Selected Poems, Rainer Maria Rilke, Translator Franz Wright, Oberlin College Press, 1990, ISBN 978-0-932440-56-3 * Valzhyna Mort: Factory of Tears (Copper Canyon Press, 2008) (translated from the Belarusian language in collaboration with the author and Elizabeth Oehlkers Wright) * “The Unknown Rilke: Expanded Edition” (1991) * “No Siege is Absolute: Versions of Rene Char” (1984) * "Buson: Haiku (2012) The Life of Mary (poems of R.M. Rilke) (1981) References Wikipedia—https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Wright

A hopeless romantic who's heart was embezzled by poetry.... if that makes sense of course :) I write poems, that's what I live for I guess. 'pretty dramatic' I know...... :p

John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester (1 April 1647– 26 July 1680), was an English poet and courtier of King Charles II’s Restoration court. The Restoration reacted against the “spiritual authoritarianism” of the Puritan era. Rochester was the embodiment of the new era, and he is as well known for his rakish lifestyle as his poetry, although the two were often interlinked. He died at the age of 33 from venereal disease. Rochester’s contemporary Andrew Marvell described him as “the best English satirist,” and he is generally considered to be the most considerable poet and the most learned among the Restoration wits. His poetry, despite being widely censored during the Victorian era, enjoyed a revival from the 1920s onwards, with notable champions including Graham Greene and Ezra Pound. The critic Vivian de Sola Pinto linked Rochester’s libertinism to Hobbesian materialism. During his lifetime, he was best known for A Satyr Against Reason and Mankind, and it remains among his best known works today. Life Upbringing and teens John Wilmot was born at Ditchley House in Oxfordshire on 1 April 1647. His father, Henry, Viscount Wilmot would be created Earl of Rochester in 1652 for his military service to Charles II during the King’s exile under the Commonwealth. Paul Davis describes Henry as "a Cavalier legend, a dashing bon viveur and war-hero who single-handedly engineered the future Charles II’s escape to the Continent (including the famous concealment in an oak tree) after the disastrous battle of Worcester in 1651". His mother, Anne St. John, was a strong-willed Puritan from a noble Wiltshire family. From the age of seven, Rochester was privately tutored, two years later attending the grammar school in nearby Burford. His father died in 1658, and John Wilmot inherited the title of the Earl of Rochester in April of that year. In January 1660, Rochester was admitted as a Fellow commoner to Wadham College, Oxford, a new and comparatively poor college. Whilst there, it is said, the 13-year-old “grew debauched”. In September 1661 he was awarded an honorary M.A. by the newly elected Chancellor of the university, Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon, a family friend. As an act of gratitude towards the son of Henry Wilmot, Charles II conferred on Rochester an annual pension of £500. In November 1661 Charles sent Rochester on a three year Grand Tour of France and Italy, and appointed the physician Andrew Balfour as his governor. This exposed him to an unusual degree to European (especially French) writing and thought. In 1664 Rochester returned to London, and made his formal début at the Restoration court on Christmas Day. It has been suggested by a number of scholars that the King took a paternal role in Rochester’s life. Charles II suggested a marriage between Rochester and the wealthy heiress Elizabeth Malet. Her wealth-hungry relatives opposed marriage to the impoverished Rochester, who conspired with his mother to abduct the young Countess. Samuel Pepys described the attempted abduction in his diary on 28 May 1665: Thence to my Lady Sandwich’s, where, to my shame, I had not been a great while before. Here, upon my telling her a story of my Lord Rochester’s running away on Friday night last with Mrs. Mallett, the great beauty and fortune of the North, who had supped at White Hall with Mrs. Stewart, and was going home to her lodgings with her grandfather, my Lord Haly, by coach; and was at Charing Cross seized on by both horse and foot men, and forcibly taken from him, and put into a coach with six horses, and two women provided to receive her, and carried away. Upon immediate pursuit, my Lord of Rochester (for whom the King had spoke to the lady often, but with no successe [sic]) was taken at Uxbridge; but the lady is not yet heard of, and the King mighty angry, and the Lord sent to the Tower. 18-year-old Rochester spent three weeks in the Tower, and was only released after he wrote a penitent apology to the King. Rochester attempted to redeem himself by volunteering for the navy in the Second Dutch War in the winter of 1665, serving under the Earl of Sandwich. His courage at the Battle of Vågen, serving onboard the ship of Thomas Teddeman, made him a war hero. Pleased with his conduct, Charles appointed Rochester a Gentleman of the Bedchamber in March 1666, which granted him prime lodgings in Whitehall and a pension of £1,000 a year. The role encompassed, one week in every four, Rochester helping the King to dress and undress, serve his meals when dining in private, and sleeping at the foot of the King’s bed. In the summer of 1666, Rochester returned to sea, serving under Edward Spragge. He again showed extraordinary courage in battle. Upon returning from sea, Rochester resumed his courtship of Elizabeth Malet. Defying her family’s wishes, Malet eloped with Rochester again in January 1667, and they were married at the Knightsbridge chapel. In October 1667, the monarch granted Rochester special licence to enter the House of Lords early, despite being seven months underage. The act was an attempt by the King to bolster his number of supporters among the Lords. Teenage actress Nell Gwyn “almost certainly” took him as her lover; she was later to become the mistress of Charles II. Gwyn remained a lifelong friend and political associate, and her relationship with the King gave Rochester influence and status within the Court. 20s and last years Rochester’s life was divided between domesticity in the country and a riotous existence at court, where he was renowned for drunkenness, vivacious conversation, and “extravagant frolics” as part of the Merry Gang (as Andrew Marvell described them). The Merry Gang flourished for about 15 years after 1665 and included Henry Jermyn; Charles Sackville, Earl of Dorset; John Sheffield, Earl of Mulgrave; Henry Killigrew; Sir Charles Sedley; the playwrights William Wycherley and George Etherege; and George Villiers, 2nd Duke of Buckingham. Gilbert Burnet wrote of him that, "For five years together he was continually Drunk... [and] not... perfectly Master of himself... [which] led him to... do many wild and unaccountable things." In 1669 he committed treason by boxing the ears of Thomas Killigrew in sight of the monarch and was banned from the court, although the King soon called for his return. In 1673, Rochester began to train Elizabeth Barry as an actress. She went on to become the most famous actress of her age. He took her as his mistress in 1675. The relationship lasted for around five years, and produced a daughter, before descending into acrimony after Rochester began to resent her success. Rochester wrote afterwards, "With what face can I incline/To damn you to be only mine?... Live up to thy might mind/And be the mistress of mankind". When the King’s advisor and friend of Rochester, George Villiers lost power in 1673, Rochester’s standing fell as well. At the Christmas festivities at Whitehall of that year, Rochester delivered a satire to Charles II, “In the Isle of Britain”– which criticized the King for being obsessed with sex at the expense of his kingdom. Charles’ reaction to this satirical portrayal resulted in Rochester’s exile from the court until February. During this time Rochester dwelt at his estate in Adderbury. Despite this, in February 1674, after much petitioning by Rochester, the King appointed him Ranger of Woodstock Park. In June 1675 “Lord Rochester in a frolick after a rant did... beat downe the dyill (i.e. sundial) which stood in the middle of the Privie Garding, which was esteemed the rarest in Europ”. John Aubrey learned what Rochester said on this occasion when he came in from his “revells” with Charles Sackville, Lord Buckhurst, and Fleetwood Sheppard to see the object: “'What... doest thou stand here to fuck time?' Dash they fell to worke”. It has been speculated that the comment refers not to the dial itself, which was not phallic in appearance, but a painting of the King next to the dial that featured his phallic sceptre. Rochester fled the court again. Rochester fell into disfavour again in 1676. During a late-night scuffle with the night watch, one of Rochester’s companions was killed by a pike-thrust. Rochester was reported to have fled the scene of the incident, and his standing with the monarch reached an all time low. Following this incident, Rochester briefly fled to Tower Hill, where he impersonated a mountebank “Doctor Bendo”. Under this persona, he claimed skill in treating “barrenness” (infertility), and other gynecological disorders. Gilbert Burnet wryly noted that Rochester’s practice was “not without success”, implying his intercession of himself as surreptitious sperm donor. On occasion, Rochester also assumed the role of the grave and matronly Mrs. Bendo, presumably so that he could inspect young women privately without arousing their husbands’ suspicions. Death By the age of 33, Rochester was dying, from what is usually described as the effects of syphilis, gonorrhea, or other venereal diseases, combined with the effects of alcoholism. Carol Richards has disputed this, arguing that it is more likely that he died of renal failure due to chronic nephritis as a result of suffering from Bright’s disease. His mother had him attended in his final weeks by her religious associates, particularly Gilbert Burnet, later Bishop of Salisbury. After hearing of Burnet’s departure from his side, Rochester muttered his last words; “Has my friend left me? then I shall die shortly”. In the early morning of 26 July 1680, Rochester died “without a shudder or a sound”. He was buried at Spelsbury Church in Oxfordshire. A deathbed renunciation of libertinism was published and promulgated as the conversion of a prodigal son. Because the first published account of this story appears in Burnet’s own writings, its accuracy has been disputed by some scholars, who accuse Burnet with having shaped the account of Rochester’s denunciation of libertinism to enhance his own reputation. Works * Three major critical editions of Rochester in the twentieth century have taken very different approaches to authenticating and organizing his canon. David Vieth’s 1968 edition adopts a heavily biographical organization, modernizing spellings and heading the sections of his book “Prentice Work”, “Early Maturity”, “Tragic Maturity”, and “Disillusionment and Death”. Keith Walker’s 1984 edition takes a genre-based approach, returning to the older spellings and accidentals in an effort to present documents closer to those a seventeenth century audience would have received. Harold Love’s Oxford University Press edition of 1999, now the scholarly standard, notes the variorum history conscientiously, but arranges works in genre sections ordered from the private to the public. Scholarship has identified approximately 75 authentic Rochester poems. * Rochester’s poetic work varies widely in form, genre, and content. He was part of a “mob of gentlemen who wrote with ease”, who continued to produce their poetry in manuscripts, rather than in publication. As a consequence, some of Rochester’s work deals with topical concerns, such as satires of courtly affairs in libels, to parodies of the styles of his contemporaries, such as Sir Carr Scroope. He is also notable for his impromptus, one of which is a teasing epitaph of King Charles II: * We have a pretty witty king, * And whose word no man relies on, * He never said a foolish thing, * And never did a wise one” * to which Charles supposedly said “that’s true, for my words are my own, but my actions are those of my ministers”. * Rochester’s poetry displays a range of learning and influences. These included imitations of Malherbe, Ronsard, and Boileau. He also translated or adapted from classical authors such as Petronius, Lucretius, Ovid, Anacreon, Horace, and Seneca. * Rochester’s writings were at once admired and infamous. A Satyr Against Mankind (1675), one of the few poems he published (in a broadside in 1679) is a scathing denunciation of rationalism and optimism that contrasts human perfidy with animal wisdom. * The majority of his poetry was not published under his name until after his death. Because most of his poems circulated only in manuscript form during his lifetime, it is likely that much of his writing does not survive. Burnet claimed that Rochester’s conversion experience led him to ask that “all his profane and lewd writings” be burned; it is unclear how much, if any, of Rochester’s writing was destroyed. * Rochester was also interested in the theatre. In addition to an interest in actresses, he wrote an adaptation of Fletcher’s Valentinian (1685), a scene for Sir Robert Howard’s The Conquest of China, a prologue to Elkanah Settle’s The Empress of Morocco (1673), and epilogues to Sir Francis Fane’s Love in the Dark (1675), Charles Davenant’s Circe, a Tragedy (1677). The best-known dramatic work attributed to Rochester, Sodom, or the Quintessence of Debauchery, has never been successfully proven to be written by him. Posthumous printings of Sodom, however, gave rise to prosecutions for obscenity, and were destroyed. On 16 December 2004 one of the few surviving copies of Sodom was sold by Sotheby’s for £45,600. * Rochester’s letters to his wife and to his friend Henry Savile show an admirable mastery of easy, colloquial prose. Reception and influence * Rochester was the model for a number of rake heroes in plays of the period, such as Don John in Thomas Shadwell’s The Libertine (1675) and Dorimant in George Etherege’s The Man of Mode (1676). Meanwhile he was eulogised by his contemporaries such as Aphra Behn and Andrew Marvell, who described him as “the only man in England that had the true vein of satire”. Daniel Defoe quoted him in Moll Flanders, and discussed him in other works. Voltaire, who spoke of Rochester as “the man of genius, the great poet”, admired his satire for its “energy and fire” and translated some lines into French to “display the shining imagination his lordship only could boast”. * By the 1750s, Rochester’s reputation suffered as the liberality of the Restoration era subsided; Samuel Johnson characterised him as a worthless and dissolute rake. Horace Walpole described him as “a man whom the muses were fond to inspire but ashamed to avow”. Despite this general disdain for Rochester, William Hazlitt commented that his “verses cut and sparkle like diamonds” while his “epigrams were the bitterest, the least laboured, and the truest, that ever were written”. Referring to Rochester’s perspective, Hazlitt wrote that “his contempt for everything that others respect almost amounts to sublimity”. Meanwhile, Goethe quoted A Satyr against Reason and Mankind in English in his Autobiography. Despite this, Rochester’s work was largely ignored throughout the Victorian era. * Rochester’s reputation would not begin to revive until the 1920s. Ezra Pound, in his ABC of Reading, compared Rochester’s poetry favourably to better known figures such as Alexander Pope and John Milton. Graham Greene characterised Rochester as a “spoiled Puritan”. Although F. R. Leavis argued that “Rochester is not a great poet of any kind”, William Empson admired him. More recently, Germaine Greer has questioned the validity of the appraisal of Rochester as a drunken rake, and hailed the sensitivity of some of his lyrics. * Rochester was listed #6 in Time Out’s "Top 30 chart of London’s most erotic writers". Tom Morris, the associate director, of the National Theatre said ‘Rochester reminds me of an unhinged poacher, moving noiselessly through the night and shooting every convention that moves. Bishop Burnett, who coached him to an implausible death-bed repentance, said that he was unable to express any feeling without oaths and obscenities. He seemed like a punk in a frock coat. But once the straw dolls have been slain, Rochester celebrates in a sexual landscape all of his own.’ In popular culture * A play, The Libertine (1994), was written by Stephen Jeffreys, and staged by the Royal Court Theatre. The 2004 film The Libertine, based on Jeffreys’ play, starred Johnny Depp as Rochester, Samantha Morton as Elizabeth Barry, John Malkovich as King Charles II and Rosamund Pike as Elizabeth Malet. Michael Nyman set to music an excerpt of Rochester’s poem, “Signor Dildo” for the film. * Rochester is the central character in Anna Lieff Saxby’s 1996 erotic novella 'No Paradise But Pleasure’ References Wikipedia—https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wilmot,_2nd_Earl_of_Rochester

I am new at this whole poetry thing, I love reading it and I thought why not give it a shot. So here I am.

Dorothy Mae Ann Wordsworth (25 December 1771 – 25 January 1855) was an English author, poet and diarist. She was the sister of the Romantic poet William Wordsworth, and the two were close all their lives. Wordsworth had no ambitions to be an author, and her writings consist only of series of letters, diary entries, poems and short stories. Life She was born on Christmas Day in Cockermouth, Cumberland in 1771. Despite the early deaths of both her parents, Dorothy, William and their three siblings had a happy childhood. When in 1783, their father died and the children were sent to live with various relatives. Wordsworth was sent alone to live with her aunt, Elizabeth Threlkeld, in Halifax, West Yorkshire. After she was able to reunite with William firstly at Racedown Lodge in Dorset in 1795 and afterwards (1797/98) at Alfoxden House in Somerset, they became inseparable companions. The pair lived in poverty at first; and would often beg for cast-off clothes from their friends. William wrote of her in his famous Tintern Abbey poem: Of this fair river; thou my dearest Friend, My dear, dear Friend; and in thy voice I catch The language of my former heart, and read My former pleasures in the shooting lights Of thy wild eyes [...] My dear, dear Sister! Wordsworth was a diarist and somewhat amateur poet with little interest in becoming an established writer. "I should detest the idea of setting myself up as an author," she once wrote, "give Wm. the Pleasure of it." She almost published her travel account with William to Scotland in 1803 Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland, but a publisher was not found and it would not be published until 1874. She wrote a very early account of an ascent of Scafell Pike in 1818 (perhaps predated only by Samuel Taylor Coleridge's of 1802), climbing the mountain in the company of her friend Mary Barker, Miss Barker's maid, and two local people to act as guide and porter. Dorothy's work was used in 1822 by her brother William, unattributed, in his popular guide book to the Lake District - and this was then copied by Harriet Martineau in her equally successful guide[5] (in its fourth edition by 1876), but with attribution, if only to William Wordsworth. Consequently this story was very widely read by the many visitors to the Lake District over more than half of the 19th century. She never married, and after William married Mary Hutchinson in 1802, continued to live with them. She was by now 31, and thought of herself as too old for marriage. In 1829 she fell seriously ill and was to remain an invalid for the remainder of her life. She died at eighty-three in 1855, having spent the past twenty years in, according to the biographer Richard Cavendish, "a deepening haze of senility". Her Grasmere Journal was published in 1897, edited by William Angus Knight. The journal eloquently described her day-to-day life in the Lake District, long walks she and her brother took through the countryside, and detailed portraits of literary lights of the early 19th century, including Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Sir Walter Scott, Charles Lamb and Robert Southey, a close friend who popularised the fairytale Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Dorothy's works came to light just as literary critics were beginning to re-examine women's role in literature. The success of the Grasmere Journal led to a renewed interest in Wordsworth, and several other journals and collections of her letters have since been published. The Grasmere Journal and Wordsworth's other works revealed how vital she was to her brother's success. William relied on her detailed accounts of nature scenes and borrowed freely from her journals. For example Dorothy wrote in her journal of 5 April 1802 "... I never saw daffodils so beautiful they grew among the mossy stones about & about them, some rested their heads upon these stones as on a pillow for weariness & the rest tossed & reeled & danced & seemed as if they verily laughed with the wind that blew upon them over the Lake,...". This passage is clearly brought to mind when reading William's "Daffodils", where her brother, in this poem of two years later, describes what appears to be the shared experience in the journal as his own solitary observation. References Wikipeda - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothy_Wordsworth

I love writing when inspired, I'm inspired by nature, emotion, music, and the Scriptures. I'm a Christian Hedonist. I love lyrical poetry with rich theology. That's why I write Christian poetry.

David McKee Wright (6 August 1869– 5 February 1928) was an Irish-born poet and journalist, active in New Zealand and Australia. Early life Wright was born at Ballynaskeagh, County Down, Ireland, the second son of Rev. William Wright, D.D. (1837-1899), a Congregational missionary working in Damascus, scholar and author, and his wife Ann (d.1877), née McKee, daughter of the Rev. David McKee, an educationist and author. David Wright was born while his parents were home on furlough and was left with a grandmother (Rebecca McKee) until he was seven years old. Wright was educated at the local Glascar School and then from 1876 in England at Mr Pope’s School and the Crystal Palace School of Engineering, London. New Zealand Wright migrated to New Zealand in 1887 and spent several years as a rabbiter on stations in Central Otago. During this time he wrote in both prose and verse for major provincial newspapers about station life. He studied for the Congregational ministry and Wright studied divinity from 1896 at the University of Otago. Wright had done a lot of private reading, but found that apart from English his education was generally below that of the other students. In 1897 Wright was awarded a Stuart prize for poetry. Wright published four volumes of ballads, Aorangi and other Verses (1896), Station Ballads and other Verses (1897), Wisps of Tussock (1900), and New Zealand Chimes (1900). As a clergyman Wright was liked, but he found the work uncongenial and gave it up for journalism in which he had considerable experience in New Zealand. Wright married Elizabeth Couper at Dunedin on 3 August 1899; a son David was born in 1900, but the marriage failed. Wright joined the New Zealand Mail as parliamentary reporter in 1907. Australia Wright moved to Sydney in 1910 and did a large amount of successful freelance work for the Sun, The Bulletin, and other papers. Wright was editor of the Red Page of The Bulletin 1916–1926 and encouraged many of the rising writers of the time, and continued to do a large amount of writing himself in both prose and verse. Much of this appeared over pen-names such as “Pat O’Maori” and “Mary McCommonwealth” and much was signed with his initials. As Wright grew older his mind turned more and more to the country of his birth, he published his most important volume, An Irish Heart (1918). In 1920 he was awarded the prize for the best poem in commemoration of the visit of the Prince of Wales, and in the same year the Rupert Brooke memorial prize for a long poem, “Gallipoli”. Neither of these poems has been published in book form. From 1912-18 Wright lived with the writer 'Margaret Fane’ (Beatrice Florence Osborne, 1887-1962) in Sydney; they had four sons. From 1918 Wright lived with Zora Cross in Greeanawn, Glenbrook, Blue Mountains. He died there on 5 February 1928. The couple had two daughters, Davidina Wright and April McKee Wright (also known as April Hersey), who went on to write at least one wartime thriller. Legacy Wright was a friend of Christopher Brennan, Randolph Bedford, Frank Morton and Henry Lawson. Though much of a Bohemian, something of the clergyman still clung to him. Zora Cross, in An Introduction to the Study of Australian Literature, gave him a high position among Australian poets. Charming though An Irish Heart may be, it is too derivative to be work of the highest kind. It is not a question of individual words or phrases, but rather of a man steeping himself in the modern Irish school of poetry, and with all the skill of his practised craftsmanship reproducing its spirit in another land. A large amount of his work, including some short plays, has never been collected. References Wikipedia—https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_McKee_Wright

Some things are better left unsaid as not all the time words can truly be used to describe everyone's ordeal......the best stories are told in complete...silence.

Who are you that you fear mere mortals, human beings who are but grass❂

Ronald Harvey Wohl has been writing poetry since he was 12-years old following his father's death. His new book of poems, "Hope and Joy" will be published fall, 2013. Ron loves people. He sees the glass as always at least 3/4 full and believes that everyone can dream, strive to reach their dreams, make mistakes, learn from their mistakes and be the best they can be. He believes in helping people help themselves. Ron loves his children and grand children and believs there should be no impediments to each person success. Ron is a graduate of the George Washington University BA 1965, and attended the George Washington University Law School and the Masters in Business Administration Program at American University with as special focus in marketing, marketing research and management. Ron is a practicing applied psychological anthropologist with a focus in religion, witchcraft, sorcery, and spirituality, and introducing change into business and other cultures. He founded and was CEO of a management communications consulting for 35 years which specialized in introducing plain English into all forms of communication to produce clarity and promote ease of operation. Ron is a Certified Management Consultant and mentor of consultants. Ron has had an extremely active political career in business and community leadrership, including running for the Maryland Legislature, being appointed as member and then chair of the Montgomery County, MD Commission on the Humanities for 9-years, being elected to the boards of directors of several parent and school organizations, homeowner associations, civic associations and other business and professional associations. He is married 48-years to his college sweetheart, has two talented and successful daughters, sons-in law, and 3 wonderful grandchildren. Ron was born in Washington, DC and hopes to retire there as well. He vacations in the mountains of West Virginia and travels the world.

I am just a person that likes to express my emotion and every day struggle of how life is for a young adult in a world of love , work, and expectation. Feel free to read and maybe one of my poems will relate.

I'm just a junior in high school that has never attempted poetry before this year. I'm open to any sort of criticism and would love for people to critic my poems so i can grow in the art. I don't, at least haven't, restricted myself to just one form of poetry. I just like to write how i feel in the moment, not how I think other people want to hear about how I feel.

Richard Withey currently resides in a mental asylum; incarcerated by his mind he occasionally makes up stories and peculiar tales of characters that have escaped into his thought processes and become part of his written words. Occasionally he will write the odd poem that helps his angst with the dissatisfaction and injustices of the world, sometimes the poems can be quite 'loved up' as well displaying a lovely ying-yang approach to the typical mental illness that is usually rage and/or then catatonia that seems to be the norm for loonies these days. He has also delved into the world of singer/songwriter, this generally occurs in the wee, small hours and involves copious amounts of alcohol, these songs can be found on SoundCloud under Grim Peepers (and he apologises in advance if any slurring can be heard). He would like to thank you in advance for taking time to read his fictional adventures, ramblings and adventures and hopes he can at least bring a smile, tear, grimace or joy to your person for a small (or longing) time. Thanks for reading, and constructive comments and compliments are very welcome ;) x

Photo Journalist College Freshman 18 Enjoy my work :)

Hi people! I am here because I love writing poetry. It is one of my passions as well as art, photography and writing. You can find my stories and some of poems on my wattpad too: http://www.wattpad.com/user/WhiteSnowflakes123 You can also find some here: http://whitesnowflakes123.deviantart.com So, my great grandfather was a poet. Poetry runs in the family, although my dad and I are the only ones who really write it. For school projects, I go and re-read my great grandfathers published poetry tips which I find really helpful. I occasionally read his poems again too. My great grandma was an artist. My mum does art for fun as well. Photography, well my uncle does that. You never see him, because he is always in the background. He does a lot of work. He is very skilled and gives me tips all the time. Sometimes we make movies together with my brother. He has met many famous people, mostly football players and their coaches. For example, all the Real Madrid players and their old coach meriño or whatever. So yes, our family is Spanish. He has also met some Barcelona players, I'm pretty sure. Anyways. I'm here for poetry. Please tell me what you think.

I am 70 years-old - live with three rescue cats and write day and night. Retired Hospice HHA - worked over 35 yrs

i write poems to express myself. i have an extremely different out look on life. my poems are examples of that.

-ChildOfTheeMostHigh -ImTheeAlluringRose -IamPoetry -Bizarre -Iche _liebe _najel

Barry G. Wick worked for many years in the broadcasting and advertising industry. A native of South Dakota, he retired to Coralville, Iowa next to Iowa City in 2014. He writes poetry and some fiction. Most everything he's ever written is unpublished. This poet is available to the whole world free of charge at http://agereasonmistake.blogspot.comm

i am a 20 year old college student who has been writing poetry since middle school. i'm completely self taught, and hope to publish my own collection of poetry soon! i write about many different topics that interest me and get inspiration from songs, movies, the weather, and real-life experiences.

Just a girl who finds happiness writing simple poetry. Let me know what you think of my poems!

I am a wildflower. Eccentric and intelligent, yet introverted! I have a handsome son, Josias. He is my world! Writing is my escape, the only way I can get words to flow :)

Hello My name is Ricky and I love poetry. I have had a act for it since i was little and I thought it was about time to share it with the world! My poems are the true facts on life. The true damages a human can endure the realism of the tortures one endures. If you don't like what you read i respect your choice.. But those who allow my words to reveal a story please enjoy.

I have always had my head in the clouds, never in the here and now. I've always dreamed of new worlds and adventures rather than dealing with what is known as reality. I hope that I can enlighten others, just as I wish to be enlightened. Anyway, I'm in the 'verse.