Margaret Atwood was born on November 18, 1939 in Ottawa, Canada. She is currently 79 years old. In her early life, she did not go to school full time because her father was an entomologist so “she [spent] most of her childhood in the backwoods of Quebec.” Despite this, she had great interest in writing, even as a young child. At the age of 16, after going to school full-time from 8th grade, she decided to pursue her writing career. In 1962, her book “Double Persephone” was published and the book won the E.J.Pratt award. Another famous work of hers is “The Handmaid’s Tale.” It has a movie and TV adaptation and is very popular. Then, in 1962, she got her master’s degree from Harvard Radcliffe College. One of Margaret’s most famous book is “The Circle Game,” which was published in 1964. After this, she started to write all kinds of books, like novels, short stories, screenplays, and etc. A lot of Margaret’s books would revolve around a woman since Margaret is a feminist, for example, “The Edible Women” and ”Surfacing.” In 1968, she married her later ex-husband Jim Polk and they would later divorce in 1973. Then, she married her present husband, Graeme Gibson, and they had a daughter together. Some of her poems include “Morning in the the Burned House” and “Power Politics.” She also wrote novels, such as “ Cat’s Eye” and “Surfacing”. Essays that Margaret wrote include “Moving Targets: Writing with Intent” and “Curious Pursuits:Occasional Writing.” Margaret’s works have won her many awards.

Work Cited

• “Who Is Margaret Atwood? Everything You Need to Know.” Childhood, Life Achievements &    Timeline, www.thefamouspeople.com/profiles/margaret-eleanor-atwood-2238.php.
• Poetry Foundation. (2018). Margaret Atwood. [online] Available at: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/margaret-atwood [Accessed 27 Nov. 2018].

Sylvia Plath was born on October 27, 1932, in Boston, Massachusetts. Sylvia Plath was a gifted and troubled poet, known for the confessional style of her work. Her interest in writing came at an early age, and she started out by keeping a journal. After publishing a number of poems, Plath won a scholarship to Smith College in 1950.While she was a student, Sylvia Plath spent time in New York City during the summer of 1953 working for Mademoiselle magazine as a guest editor. Soon after, Plath tried to kill herself by taking sleeping pills. She eventually recovered, having received treatment during a stay in a mental health facility. Plath returned to Smith and finished her degree in 1955. A Fulbright Fellowship brought Sylvia Plath to Cambridge University in England. While studying at the university’s Newnham College, she met the poet Ted Hughes. The two married in 1956 and had a stormy relationship. She also taught English at Smith College around that same time. Plath returned to England in 1959.A poet on the rise, Sylvia Plath had her first collection of poetry, The Colossus, published in England in 1960. That same year, she gave birth to her first child, a daughter named Freida. Two years later, Plath and Hughes welcomed a second child, a son named Nicholas. Unfortunately, the couple’s marriage was failing apart.  After Hughes left her for another woman in 1962, Sylvia Plath fell into a deep depression. Struggling with her mental illness, she wrote The Bell Jar (1963), her only novel, which was based on her life and deals with one young woman’s mental breakdown. Plath published the novel under the pseudonym Victoria Lucas. She also created the poems that would make up the collection Ariel (1965), which was released after her death. Sylvia Plath committed suicide on February 11, 1963.Against the wishes of some admirers of Sylvia Plath, Ted Hughes became her literary executor after her death. While there has been some speculation about how he handled her papers and her image, he did edit what is considered by many to be her greatest work, Ariel. It featured several of her most well-known poems, including “Daddy” and “Lady Lazarus.” He continued to produce new collections of Plath’s works. Sylvia Plath won the Pulitzer Prize in 1982 for Collected Poems. She is still a highly regarded and much studied poet to this day.

Citations

Sylvia Plath. Biography.com, A&E Networks Television, 28 Apr. 2017, www.biography.com/people/sylvia-plath-9442550.

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/Sylvia Plath

https://www.biography.com/people/Sylvia Plath

Andrew Grace grew up in a farm family in the out skirts of Urbana, Illinois. After realizing that the setting of the never ending crops that the farm lifestyle provided wasn’t really that appealing to him, he found himself constantly moving west until found himself living most of his early years in the Bay area of California. Most of Andrew’s early poetry was about the landscape he grew up in. Andrew currently resides in Ohio as a PHD candidate (it’s safe to say that he has gotten it by now considering that it was 2012 at the time of him stating that) with his wife, Tory Weber, and daughter, Lily. He received his education from Kenyon College, Washington University, and University of Cincinnati, but gives credit for most of his poetry knowledge from shopping at the bookstores in Berkeley. Andrew has been a visiting professor for many english classes at Kenyon college. Poetry came to his support more than ever after his father past away from a farm accident, during his teenage years. Many poets were a great influence to Andrew including, Eigner, Oppen, Niedecker, Giscombe, and Hillman. As a punk rock fan in his adolescent years, punk rock also had some what of an influence sprinkled into Andrew’s writing. Andrew’s recent acceptance of publication of his second book by the Ohio State University Press, and many poem features including, Boston Review and Iowa Review just shows how much of a successful writer Andrew Grace is.

Citations:

1. “Sancta.” Ahsahta Press, https://ahsahtapress.org/book/andrew-grace/. Accessed 28 Nov. 2018.
2. Andy Grace. https://www.kenyon.edu/directories/campus-directory/biography/andy-grace/. Accessed 28 Nov. 2018.