William Butler Yeats? One of the greatest poets of the twentieth century – and a complicated man who had time to dabble in nationalism, eugenics, and fascism before they were unfashionable. He came from the Anglo-Protestant minority in Ireland, but proudly identified as Irish. His poetry was a window on the world of the early 20th century. He died before the Second World War in Europe, in 1939.

You can find a bit of biography here at the Poetry Foundation. Take time to read the full poem, “The Second Coming,” and learn a bit about Yeats and the power of poetry in the face of disaster.