Oscar Fingal O' Flahertie Wills Wilde was born in 1854 in Dublin, Ireland. In his first nine years, he was educated at home, and then he attended highly recognized schools. After high school he attended Trinity University in Ireland. He was an excellent student. He received the highest award, the Berkley gold medal and then earns a scholarship to Magdalen College based in Oxford where he was awarded with the Newdigate prize in 1878 for his poem called "Ravenna".

After he finished his studies, he fell in love with Miss Florence Balcome, who ended breaking his heart to the point that he left Ireland permanently. He went to live in London for a couple of years, where he married a very wealthy woman whose name was Constance. Because of that, he was able to enjoy his life with luxury. He had two sons, Cyril and Vivyan, in 1885 and 1886.

He was imprisoned for gross indecency and was sentenced for two years. He was finally released in 1897 penniless, as his wife had left him and also had died. He moved to Paris for a while and changed his name for Sebastian Melmoth and wrote one of his finest works, "The Ballad of reading Gaol"; later on, he moved to United States. He died November 1990 from cerebral meningitis. His tomb was designed by the famous sculptor Sir Jacob Epstein.

His most outstanding poems were "Apologia" "Ave Maria Gratia Plena", "The Grace of Keats", "The Grave of Shelly", "Her Voice", "Louis Napoleon", "On the Massacre of the Christians in Bulgaria", and "Under the Balcony".

Amy Lowell, an American poet, was born Amy Lawrence Lowell on February 9, 1874 in Brookline, Massachusetts. Amy came from a very prominent family, as both of her parents were aristocrats. She had a famous astronomer for a brother who predicted the existence of the planet Pluto, and a second brother who served as president of Harvard University. Despite having educated brothers, her family did not believe that women should go to school. Instead, she was taught at home by an English governess until she was sent to private schools in both her home town and Boston. Instead of receiving the traditional college education, Amy was an avid reader and collected books obsessively.

She lived her life as a socialite and traveled extensively. In 1902, her interest in poetry was sparked by a performance of Eleonora Duse. Eight years later, Amy’s first published work appeared in Atlantic Monthly, an American magazine founded in 1857. Two years later “A Dome of Many Colored Glass,” Amy’s first collection of poetry was published. She also had several other published works, all of which she published on her own. Not only did she publish her own work, but she published other writer's works as well.

In 1912, Amy met actress Ada Dwyer Russell. The two females became best friends, and were even considered to be lesbians. Regardless of how their relationship was looked at, they remained loyal and faithful to each other until Amy died on May 12, 1925 at the age of 51. After Amy’s death, Ada edited one of her pieces of work, “What’s O’Clock,” which won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry. Over her lifetime, Amy wrote more than 650 poems.

Robert Hayden is an American poet, essayist and educator. He was born Asa Bundy Sheffrey on August 4, 1913 in Detroit, Michigan. His parents split before he was born and Hayden was taken in by a foster family who happened to live next door. There names were Sue Ellen Westerfield and William Hayden.

Hayden had a fairly traumatic childhood. Living in a house where he witnessed abuse and suffered beatings himself, he also had to deal with his birth mother competing for his affection. On top of this, he grew up in a Japanese ghetto known as Paradise Valley. All this trauma would stay with Hayden through adulthood and resulted in paralyzing episodes of depression.

Hayden occupied himself by constantly reading. Avoiding trouble at home and unable to participate in sports because of his impaired vision, he spent almost all of his free time reading books. After graduating from high school in 1932, he went to Wayne State University with the help of a scholarship. He graduated with his Bachelor’s degree in 1936.

After participating in the Detroit Federal Writer’s Project, Hayden went on to earn his Master’s degree from the University of Michigan. After graduating in 1944, he became a professor at Fisk University in Nashville, which is where he would call home for over 20 years. He returned to Michigan in 1969 to finish his teaching career. He was elected to the American Academy of Poets in 1975. Hayden had one spouse, Erma Inez Morris. He died in Ann Arbor, Michigan in 1980 at the age of 66.

Thomas Hardy was born in 1840 at Bockhampton, in Dorset, England. His father was a stonemason and builder of houses. Thomas was schooled at home by his mother until age eight whose interest was in Latin poetry and French romances. Then Thomas went to a local school for the next six years. At age sixteen, he was then apprenticed to an architect that resided in the area.

When he turned twenty two, he moved to London to work with an architect, who restored old churches. While in London, he also enrolled in King's College as a student and that is where he started to write. Thomas was not happy in London because of the class difference between him and the people he dealt with, so he moved back to Dorset. There, he continued practicing architecture and restoring old churches, as well as working on his writing. In 1874, he married Emma Lavinia Gifford, who was an influence in his work as a writer.

Thomas Hardy is well known for his novels which he thought were not as successful. There was so much controversy over the two that he thought were his best novels, that he decided to only write poetry from then on. He was fifty by that time. His well known books are The Poor Man and the Lady (1867), Far from the Madding Crowd (1874), Tess of the D'urbervilles (1891), and Jude the Obscure (1895), to name a few. His poetry collections included Wessx Poems (1898), Poems of the Past and Present (1901), Times Laughingstocks (1909). He died in 1928, but he wrote up until his death.

Thomas Hardy, a British poet, was born in Dorset, England on June 2, 1840. Despite showing great potential at school, his family lacked the social means to send Hardy on to further his educations. At the age of 16, schooling ended for Hardy and he went to be an apprentice for John Hicks, a local architect. Hardy trained as an architect in Dorchester before he left and moved to London in 1862 where he enrolled as a student at King’s College. Despite winning prizes from the Royal Institute of British Architects and the Architectural Association, Hardy was constantly aware of his social status. He was however, interested in social reform and was introduced to different works by Charles Fourier and Auguste Comte.

In 1867, Hardy left London and returned to his hometown of Dorset where he decided to leave architecture and concentrate on his writing. In 1870, while in Cromwell, Hardy met and fell in love with Emma Gifford, whom he married four years later. In 1910, Hardy was given the distinguished honor of being awarded the Order of Merit. Emma died in 1912 and her death had a profound effect on him. He took trips back to Cornwall to revisit places that reminded him of her. In his “Poems 1912-13,” Hardy reflects on Emma’s death.

In 1914, despite not being over his first wife, he remarried. He married his secretary who also happened to be 39 years younger than him, but was still traumatized by his first wife’s death. He wrote poetry to try and get over his grief and remorse. After Hardy died in 1928, his heart was buried with his first wife, Emma, and his ashes were buried in Poets’ Corner, a section of Westminster Abbey.