Poets' Graves

Poets' Graves is an on-line database of the last resting places of poets. The site is regularly archived by the British Library so that it remains available to future researchers.

History
This UK website was founded in 2003 by Cameron Self and Nicola Bushell. Originally it listed only famous English poets, but over the years has expanded to include US poets, European poets and other poets from around the world.

Features
The web site lists the exact location of the poet's grave and features photographs of the grave, epitaph (where applicable) and biographical details of many of the poets included. The site contains 299 entries at present. 119 are full page entries containing: biographies, portraits of the poets and a selection of poetry - while 180 are simply listings of burial sites.

The earliest burial record included on the site is that of the tomb of Homer - allegedly located on the Greek island of Ios. Other early entries include Virgil, Dante and Chaucer. The site also includes poets from all the major poetic periods: the Renaissance, the Neo-Classical, US Puritan poets, Romantic poets and Modernist poets. More recently deceased poets' entries include Sylvia Plath, Ted Hughes, Philip Larkin, John Betjeman, Charles Causley, Norman Nicholson and Allen Ginsberg.

The site is a work in progress and visitors are encouraged to submit suggestions of poets not included together with photographs of their graves. The aim is to capture details of as many significant poets as possible.

Poets' Graves also contains an on-line glossary of poetic terms, a library of out-of-copyright classic poems, lists of UK and US Poets Laureate, lists of Oxford Professors of Poetry, a poets timeline, famous poetry quotations, and poetry book reviews. The site also gives links to poet-based societies such as The Wordsworth Trust, The Philip Larkin Society and the Edward Thomas Fellowship.

There are also burial records for other writers and musicians.



Forum
The Poets' Graves Workshop is a message board where contributors can submit their own poetry, song lyrics and short stories in order to receive constructive criticism from other users. The aim of the forum is to help poets/writers to improve their own creative work by taking on board feedback from other writers. The site no longer participates in the IBPC monthly competition.

There are regular featured poems and stories, selected by the site admin team and the site moderators. Some of these featured poems have been recorded by their authors and are now available for other members or visitors to listen to.

The forum has regular contributors drawn from the UK, the USA, Canada and Australia. Japan-based British poet Brian Edwards was recently enlisted as a site moderator.