William Wordsworth remains one of our better known poets, as far as known poets go. He was one of the founders of English Romanticism, for one, along with his contemporary Samuel Taylor Coleridge, with whom he extensively collaborated. And he was a fierce proponent of using the everyday vocabulary of common people throughout his poetry, what Wordsworth dubbed, “the real language of men.”
Wordsworth was also a staunch political activist, writing against monarchy and advocating for equality by way of a democratic system. His writing and late night walks into nature aroused enough suspicion that he and his household were once suspected of being French spies.
But Wordsworth was, at heart, a naturalist. A poet who continually spoke of the connection between man and nature and advocated for their union: “From Nature and her overflowing soul / I had received so much that all my thoughts / were steeped in feeling …” he wrote. “...in all things, I saw one life, and felt that it was joy.”
Our writer-curator this month is Martin Corless-Smith. A poet and translator originally from Worcestershire, England, Corless-Smith teaches at Boise State University and his thirteenth book, Golden Satellite Debris, was published in 2024.
