Edward James "Ted" Hughes was an English poet, translator, and children's writer. Critics frequently rank him as one of the best poets of his generation and one of the twentieth century's greatest writers. He was appointed Poet Laureate in 1984 and held the office until his death. In 2008, The Times ranked Hughes fourth on its list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945".
Dame Carol Ann Duffy is a Scottish poet and playwright. She is a professor of contemporary poetry at Manchester Metropolitan University, and was appointed Poet Laureate in May 2009, and her term expired in 2019. She was the first female poet laureate, the first Scottish-born poet and the first openly lesbian poet to hold the Poet Laureate position.
William Edgar Stafford was an American poet and pacifist. He was the father of poet and essayist Kim Stafford. He was appointed the twentieth Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1970.
William Stanley Merwin was an American poet who wrote more than fifty books of poetry and prose and produced many works in translation. During the 1960s anti-war movement, Merwin's unique craft was thematically characterized by indirect, unpunctuated narration. In the 1980s and 1990s, his writing influence derived from an interest in Buddhist philosophy and deep ecology. Residing in a rural part of Maui, Hawaii, he wrote prolifically and was dedicated to the restoration of the island's rainforests.
Galway Mills Kinnell was an American poet. His dark poetry emphasized scenes and experiences in threatening, ego-less natural environments. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his 1982 collection, Selected Poems and split the National Book Award for Poetry with Charles Wright. From 1989 to 1993, he was poet laureate for the state of Vermont.
Dušan Simić, known as Charles Simic, was a Serbian American poet and co-poetry editor of the Paris Review. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1990 for The World Doesn't End and was a finalist of the Pulitzer Prize in 1986 for Selected Poems, 1963–1983 and in 1987 for Unending Blues. He was appointed the fifteenth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 2007.
Donald Andrew Hall Jr. was an American poet, writer, editor, and literary critic. He was the author of over 50 books across several genres from children's literature, biography, memoir, essays, and including 22 volumes of verse. Hall was a graduate of Phillips Exeter Academy, Harvard University, and Christ Church, Oxford. Early in his career, he became the first poetry editor of The Paris Review (1953–1961), the quarterly literary journal, and was noted for interviewing poets and other authors on their craft.
Dennis Beynon Lee is a Canadian poet, teacher, editor, and critic born in Toronto, Ontario. He is also a children's writer, well known for his book of children's rhymes, Alligator Pie.
Maxine Kumin was an American poet and author. She was appointed Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1981–1982.
Children's poetry is poetry written for, appropriate for, or enjoyed by children.
John Agard FRSL is a Guyanese playwright, poet and children's writer, now living in Britain. In 2012, he was selected for the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry. He was awarded BookTrust's Lifetime Achievement Award in November 2021.
Peter Sís is a Czech-born American illustrator and writer of children's books. As a cartoonist his editorial illustrations have appeared in Time, Newsweek, Esquire, and The Atlantic Monthly. In 2012 he received the Hans Christian Andersen Medal for his "lasting contribution" as an illustrator of children's literature.
Paul Oser Zelinsky is an American illustrator and writer who illustrated children's picture books. He won the 1998 Caldecott Medal for U.S. picture book illustration, for Rapunzel. His most popular work is Wheels On the Bus, a best-selling movable book.
It's Halloween is a picture book written by Jack Prelutsky and illustrated by Marylin Hafner, published in 1977. The book is a collection of children's poems with a Halloween theme.
Juan Felipe Herrera is an American poet, performer, writer, toonist, teacher, and activist. Herrera was the 21st United States Poet Laureate from 2015 to 2017. He is a major figure in the literary field of Chicano poetry.
Good Night, Sleep Tight is a major children's poetry anthology collated by Ivan Jones and Mal Lewis Jones. It contains 366 poems by world famous and lesser known poets, including some of the editors' own poems. There is one poem for each night of the year. The book is divided into twelve sections with each month illustrated by a well-known illustrator. The idea of the book is for busy parents to read their children a poem every night - and to pick out special ones for birthdays, religious festivals and other significant events. The book was published by Scholastic and Scholastic Inc (USA) in 2000 and has sold over a hundred thousand copies in hardback.
Marilyn Nelson is an American poet, translator, biographer, and children's book author. She is a professor emeritus at the University of Connecticut, and the former Poet Laureate of Connecticut. She is a winner of the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, the NSK Neustadt Prize for Children’s Literature, and the Frost Medal. From 1978 to 1994, she published under the name Marilyn Nelson Waniek. She is the author or translator of more than twenty books and five chapbooks of poetry for adults and children. While most of her work deals with historical subjects, in 2014 she published a memoir, named one of NPR's Best Books of 2014, entitled How I Discovered Poetry.
Yossi Abolafia is an Israeli writer and illustrator of children's books, as well as a graphic artist, cartoonist, director and screenwriter of animation films.
Arnold Lobel was a children's author and illustrator. He wrote:
Lilian Moore, was a writer of children's books, teacher and poet. She founded and edited for Scholastic's Arrow Book Club, a low-cost mail-order paperback service for children. She also helped found the Council on Interracial Books for Children.
