Profession: poet

Hegel and Schelling were close student friends of Hölderlin, the three rooming and drinking together; each influenced the others’ ideas and work. Schiller helped Hölderlin get his early work published, and periodically helped to support him; Hölderlin had been introduced to him as a student, moved to Jena where Schiller had fixed him up with a tutoring job and where he attended Fichte’s lectures, and was introduced to Goethe by him. Hölderlin visited Lavater in Zürich and Herder in Weimar. Sömmering was his doctor. Niethammer was a friend, although he didn’t reply when Hölderlin wrote asking for help in finding a job.

Sentenced to a long stay in Russia, he befriended many literati, most closely Pushkin, who translated some of his verse and introduced Glinka and Zhukovsky to him. Finally granted a passport to leave, he travelled through Europe before settling eventually in Paris. Along the way, he met Goethe in Weimar and Schlegel in Bonn, and Cooper and Thorvaldsen in Rome. Sand was prominent among his Paris friends (with Michelet, she attended his lectures at the Collège de France). Lamennais was another Paris friend, as was Chopin, who visited his fellow-invalid so he could play for him and soothe his nerves.

Padgett and Brainard first met aged six, were mid-west high-school classmates, and remained close friends and colleagues for life. Padgett met the slightly older Berrigan at seventeen, building a strong friendship over hours of conversation; they followed each other to New York, and collaborated fruitfully. Koch and Trilling taught Padgett. Schuyler and Porter were among the poet/artist circle he mixed with in New York, where Dine and Katz also collaborated with him. Yu Jian was met in Sweden: with no common language, they clicked, eventually writing poems together in amused partnership with an automatic translation program.

Tranter interviewed Fisher (for the first issue of his magazine); Phillips collaborated with him (twice).