The Dymock poets were a literary

Literature

Literature is the art of written works, and is not bound to published sources...

 group of the early 20th century who made their home near the village of Dymock

Dymock

Dymock is a small village in the Forest of Dean district of Gloucestershire, England about four miles south of Ledbury, with a population of approx. 300 people....

 in Gloucestershire

Gloucestershire

Gloucestershire is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn, and the entire Forest of Dean....

, England, near to the border with Herefordshire

Herefordshire

Herefordshire is a historic and ceremonial county in the West Midlands region of England. For Eurostat purposes it is a NUTS 3 region and is one of three counties that comprise the "Herefordshire, Worcestershire and Gloucestershire" NUTS 2 region. It also forms a unitary district known as the...

. They were Robert Frost

Robert Frost

Robert Lee Frost was an American poet. He is highly regarded for his realistic depictions of rural life and his command of American colloquial speech. His work frequently employed settings from rural life in New England in the early twentieth century, using them to examine complex social and...

, Lascelles Abercrombie

Lascelles Abercrombie

Lascelles Abercrombie was a British poet and literary critic, one of the "Dymock poets"...

, Rupert Brooke

Rupert Brooke

Rupert Chawner Brooke was an English poet known for his idealistic war sonnets written during the First World War, especially The Soldier...

, Edward Thomas

Edward Thomas (poet)

Philip Edward Thomas was an Anglo-Welsh writer of prose and poetry. He is commonly considered a war poet, although few of his poems deal directly with his war experiences. Already an accomplished writer, Thomas turned to poetry only in 1914...

, Wilfrid Wilson Gibson

Wilfrid Wilson Gibson

Wilfrid Wilson Gibson was a British Georgian poet, associated with World War I but also the author of much later work.-Early work:...

, and John Drinkwater, some of whom lived near the village in the period between 1911 and 1914. Eleanor Farjeon

Eleanor Farjeon

Eleanor Farjeon was an English author of children's stories and plays, poetry, biography, history and satire. Many of her works had charming illustrations by Edward Ardizzone. Some of her correspondence has also been published...

, who was involved with Edward Thomas, also visited. They published their own quarterly, entitled 'New Numbers', containing poems such as Brooke's poem "The Soldier

The Soldier (poem)

"The Soldier" is a poem written by Rupert Brooke. The poem is the fifth of a series of poems entitled 1914.It is often contrasted with Wilfred Owen's 1917 antiwar poem Dulce Et Decorum EstThe manuscript is located at King's College, Cambridge....

". The First World War

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

, which saw the death of Thomas, resulted in the break-up of the community.

Abercrombie, Brooke, Drinkwater and Gibson were poets who had contributed to the Westminster Gazette

Westminster Gazette

The Westminster Gazette was an influential Liberal newspaper based in London. It was known for publishing sketches and short stories, including early works by Raymond Chandler, Anthony Hope and Saki, and travel writing by Rupert Brooke. One of its editors was caricaturist and political cartoonist...

and were considered Georgian poets

Georgian poets

The Georgian poets were, by the strictest definition, those whose works appeared in a series of five anthologies named Georgian Poetry, published by Harold Monro and edited by Edward Marsh. The first volume contained poems written in 1911 and 1912. The poets included Edmund Blunden, Rupert Brooke,...

. The `Georgian' style, particularly its versification, fell out of favour in the 1920s and 1930s, but at the time was considered 'advanced', and a precursor of 'modernism'. It used simple language and took as its subjects ordinary events and people.

Edward Marsh, the artistic and literary patron, edited the five volumes of Georgian Poetry which were published by Harold Monro

Harold Monro

Harold Edward Monro was a British poet, the proprietor of the Poetry Bookshop in London which helped many famous poets bring their work before the public....

.

Drinkwater had close connections with the Birmingham

Birmingham

Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...

 Repertory Theatre in Station Street, which opened in 1913. He was its first manager, and wrote several plays for the company, mainly historical pieces and light comedies. The Old Rep. is now the home of the British Stage Company.

External links

• Dymock Poets Archive University of Gloucestershire Archives and Special Collections
• The Friends of the Dymock Poets
• Dymock Community Website
• The Edward Thomas Fellowship