Profession: poet

Annensky taught and influenced her. She’d known Gumilyov since she was 14: honeymooning together in Paris, he went off to Abyssynia, while she became Modigliani’s lover. Mandelstam, a close friend for many years, joined Gumilyov and her in forming the so-called Acmeist movement. Gumilev was her son, Blok a good friend, Altman painted her, and Pasternak (already married) proposed to her. Tsvetaeva became a long-term friend: several poems were written as correspondence between them. She told Frost he’d never understand the hardships she’d lived through; his visit, and Berlin’s, had troubling repercussions.

As a young poet, Tsvetaeva met Bely, and wrote about him. She celebrated her affair with Mandelstam in a collection of poems: an intense affair with another poet, Sofia Parnok, led to notably open lesbian verse. Living in exile in Paris, she corresponded extensively with Rilke, and wrote a poem commemorating the friendship after his death. Goncharova illustrated a story of hers — they tried unsuccessfully to get it published in France. She wrote to Pasternak for twenty years (falling in love along the way) before meeting him, and admired Akhmatova’s poetry for three decades before meeting and closely befriending her.

Mandelstam’s close friends Gumilyov and Akhmatova formed a modernist movement with him (Akhmatova slipped him a boiled egg when the secret police arrested him). He met Ehrenburg in Kiev, heckled Mayakovsky (despite his reserve), and astonished Blok by the transformation in his face when he recited his poetry. Tsvetaeva had an affair with him, and wrote poems celebrating it; opinionated about other people’s poetry, he discounted hers, acknowledged Pasternak’s (who, later, interceded unsuccessfully to save his life), and admired Akhmatova’s. The courageous survivor Nadezhda Mandelstam was his widow.

Wordsworth met Coleridge in Somerset, developed a close and highly productive literary friendship, and moved nearby with his sister Dorothy. Coleridge also introduced Charles Lamb to him. Keats was introduced to his hero Wordsworth by a mutual friend, Haydon, in London, where other friends of Wordsworth’s included Godwin. Moving to the Lake District, Southey, Coleridge and de Quincey became close neighbours. The visiting Hazlitt’s unsubtle pursuit of local women left Wordsworth cold (Coleridge’s opium habit also caused him to distance himself). Haydon painted a romantic portrait of Wordsworth on Helvellyn.

The poets Pound and Doolittle (H. D.) and the painter Demuth were fellow-students with Williams, and supportive long-term friends, though Williams later suffered by association with Pound’s fascism. He spent time with Joyce in Paris, while Stevens, Moore, Duchamp, Ray and Picabia were among the New York circle he frequented on weekends away from paediatrics. West published a magazine with him. Williams mentored Creeley and Olson, while Levertov was another of the many poets he helped nurture. Ginsberg said he freed his poetic voice. Eugene O’Neill catcalled Williams and Loy for the shyness of their stage kisses

Whitman and Emerson met over 25 years yet rarely seemed to get beyond grudging respect for each other. Stoker corresponded at length with Whitman, and visited him when professional duties took him to America; Tennyson and Symonds sent Whitman affectionate letters. Eakins painted and photographed him, while Whitmano himself wrote about being photographed by Brady. Howells met him at a literary saloon-bar, Thoreau visited his house with Alcott, and Wilde drank elderberry wine and milk punch with him.