Christy Ku

Christy Ku was one of the top six finalists for BBC 1Xtra’s Words First programme 2019 and has headlined nights around the UK. She is a Barbican Young Poet alumna and has worked closely with the Barbican Centre on various artistic commissions. Christy is also a short story writer, YouTube journalist, digital content producer, photographer and podcaster, and is working on her debut poetry collection. ‘we misread ‘language’ as ’lavender’ is here.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838)

Letitia was better known as L.E.L., the enigmatic initials under which she published poetry in The Gentleman’s Magazine. They were eagerly awaited by readers, and writers including Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Christina Rossetti composed poems in her praise. She was beset by rumours about a racy love life but eventually married George Maclean and sailed with him to Ghana – then the Gold Coast – where he was governor. There she died of an overdose of prussic acid which was judged to have been accidental, despite some speculations to the contrary. L.E.L.’s romantic style fell out of fashion after her death, though her work has been rediscovered in recent decades.

The Sea-Shore / Furness Abbey are here and here.

Emma Lazarus (1849–1887)

Emma Lazarus was from a Jewish family in New York. She worked on Ellis Island teaching English to Jews who had fled persecution in Russia, and wrote passionately against anti-Semitism. ‘The New Colossus’ was written to raise funds to build a pedestal for the Statue of Liberty (the statue itself was a gift to America from France) and it was eventually inscribed upon the monument itself.

The New Colossus is here.

Thyrza Leyshon

Thyrza Leyshon lives and works in Essex. Her poetry has appeared in a range of publications. She also has work included in Est: Collected reports from East Anglia and was awarded second prize in Ware Poets competition 2018. Her work was highly commended in The Forward Book of Poetry 2020.

Edith Sitwell is here.

Audre Lorde (1934–1992)

Audre was born in New York to West Indian parents and developed a love for poetry at a young age, writing her own verses from her early teens. As well as working as a teacher and librarian, she was an outspoken lifelong activist, writing and fighting against racism, classism and homophobia. Audre was also an important figure in twentieth-century feminism and a pioneering champion of the need for intersectional politics. She had two children in the late 1960s, taught in Berlin during the 1980s and eventually settled with her partner Dr Gloria Joseph in the Caribbean. Having documented her illness in the ground-breaking autobiography The Cancer Journals, Audre died of liver cancer at the young age of 58. Just before her death, she took the African name Gamba Adisa, translated as ‘Warrior: she who makes her meaning known.’

Coal is here.

Amy Lowell (1874–1925)

Amy was from a prominent Massachusetts family who didn’t think their daughters should go to college, but fortunately their mansion had a library stocked with 7,000 books. At twenty-eight she decided to become a poet, so she read intensively for eight years in preparation. She was a poetry pioneer and campaigned forcefully to bring it to a wider audience by lecturing, translating and nurturing new talent. A flamboyant and eccentric figure with a prince-nez, bun, and a cigar permanently in hand, Amy became a poetry celebrity. She lived with actress Ada Dwyer Russell, to whom many of her poems are addressed. Bath / A Winter Ride / The Crescent Moon / Roads are here, here, here and here.