Listen to “Richard Cory” (1897) by Edwin Arlington Robinson.
Learn more about Edwin Arlington Robinson (1869-1935):
“Edwin Arlington Robinson is poetry. I can think of no other living writer who has so consistently dedicated his life to his work.†– Amy Lowell
Robinson is considered unique among American poets of his time for his devotion to his art; he published virtually nothing during his long career except poetry. “The expense of Robinson’s single-mindedness,†Gilbert explained, “was virtually everything else in life for which people strive, but it eventually won for him both fortune and fame, as well as a firm position in literary history as America’s first important poet of the twentieth century.†Read more from The Poetry Foundation’s biography of Robinson.
A brief biography of Robinson (Academy of American Poets)
His life and comments on his poems (Modern American Poetry HP)
About Robinson and his home in Gardiner, Maine