Illuminations

About Arthur Rimbaud

Arthur Rimbaud (1854-1891) is one of France's most controversial and influential poets though he gave up his career at a young age. He spent the first part of his life in Charleville before moving to Paris in 1871 at the invitation of Paul Verlaine who became his lover. After abandoning poetry at the age of twenty one Rimbaud travelled widely eventually settling in Aden in the Yemen. Ill health forced a return to France in 1891; the same year he died in Marseilles aged thirty seven.; John Ashbery was born in Rochester New York in 1927. The winner of many prizes and awards both nationally and internationally including the Griffin and Pulitzer Prizes in 2011 he received the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters from the National Book Foundation and in 2012 he received a National Humanities Medal presented by President Obama at the White House. He lived in New York until his death aged ninety in 2017.