John Drinkwater Playwright
- Gender: Male
- Citizenship: England
- Born: Jun 1, 1882
- Died: Mar 25, 1937
John Drinkwater (1 June 1882 - 25 March 1937) was an English poet and dramatist.
He was born in Leytonstone, London, and worked as an insurance clerk. In the period immediately before the First World War, he was one of the group of poets associated with the Gloucestershire village of Dymock, along with Rupert Brooke and others.
In 1918, he scored his first major success with his play Abraham Lincoln. He followed it up with others in a similar vein, including Mary Stuart and Oliver Cromwell. In 1924, his Lincoln play was adapted for a two-reel short film made by Lee DeForest and J. Searle Dawley featuring Frank McGlynn Sr. as Lincoln, and made in DeForest's Phonofilm sound-on-film process.
He had published poetry since The Death of Leander in 1906; the first volume of his Collected Poems appeared in 1923. He also compiled anthologies and wrote literary criticism (e.g. Swinburne: an estimate (1913)), and later became manager of Birmingham Repertory Theatre.
He was married to Daisy Kennedy, the ex-wife of Benno Moiseiwitsch.
Papers relating to John Drinkwater and collected by his stepdaughter are held at the University of Birmingham Special Collections.
But in the finished art of the song the use of words has no connection with the use of words in poetry.
poetry
If it is an imperfect word, no external circumstance can heighten its value as poetry.
poetry
For while the subjects of poetry are few and recurrent, the moods of man are infinitely various and unstable. It is the same in all arts.
poetry
Poetry is the communication through words of certain experiences that can be communicated in no other way.
communication & poetry
It should here be added that poetry habitually takes the form of verse.
poetry