Children of Light
Our fathers wrung their bread from stocks and stones
And fenced their gardens with the Redmen's bones;
Embarking from the Nether Land of Holland,
Pilgrims unhouseled by Geneva's night,
They planted here the Serpent's seeds of light;
And here the pivoting searchlights probe to shock
The riotous glass houses built on rock,
And candles gutter by an empty altar,
And light is where the landless blood of Cain
Is burning, burning the unburied grain.
Robert Lowell

History
History has to live with what was here, clutching and close to fumbling all we had-- it is so dull and gruesome how we die, unlike writing, life never finishes.
Abel was finished; death is not remote, a flash-in-the-pan electrifies the skeptic, his cows crowding like skulls against high-voltage wire, his baby crying all night like a new machine.
As in our Bibles, white-faced, predatory, the beautiful, mist-drunken hunter's moon ascends-- a child could give it a face: two holes, two holes, my eyes, my mouth, between them a skull's no-nose--
O there's a terrifying innocence in my face drenched with the silver salvage of the mornfrost.
Robert Lowell

Lowell was born in Boston, Massachusetts to a Boston Brahmin family that included poets Amy Lowell and James Russell Lowell. His mother, Charlotte Winslow, was a descendant of William Samuel Johnson, a signer of the United States Constitution, along with Jonathan Edwards, the famed Calvinist theologian, Anne Hutchinson, the Puritan preacher and healer, Robert Livingston the Elder, Thomas Dudley, the second governor of Massachusetts, and Mayflower passengers James Chilton and his daughter Mary Chilton.
He received his high school education at St. Mark's School, a prominent prep-school in Southborough, Massachusetts, where he met and was influenced by the poet Richard Eberhart who taught at the school. Then Lowell attended Harvard College for two years before transferring to Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio, to study under John Crowe Ransom and Allen Tate.[3]
There is a well-known anecdote about where Lowell lived when he first arrived at Kenyon. Before arriving at the school, he asked Allen Tate if he could live with him, and Tate joked that if Lowell wanted to, he could pitch a tent on his lawn; this is exactly what Lowell did. In an interview for The Paris Review, Lowell stated that he went to Sears, Roebuck to purchase the "pup tent" that he set up on Tate's lawn and lived in for two months[4][5] Lowell called the act "a terrible piece of youthful callousness." [5] Fortunately for Tate and his wife, Lowell soon settled into the so-called "writer's house" (a dorm that received its nickname after it had accrued a number of ambitious young writers) with fellow students Peter Taylor, Robie Macauley and Randall Jarrell.[6]
Partly in rebellion against his parents, he converted from Episcopalianism to Catholicism (however, by the end of the forties, he would end up leaving the Catholic Church).[7] After Lowell graduated from Kenyon in 1940 with a degree in Classics, he worked on a Masters degree in English literature at Louisiana State University for one year before World War II broke out.[8]
Imprisonment
Lowell was a conscientious objector during World War II[9] and served several months at the federal prison in Danbury, Connecticut. He explained his decision not to serve in World War II in a letter addressed to President Franklin Roosevelt on September 7, 1943, stating, "Dear Mr President: I very much regret that I must refuse the opportunity you offer me in your communication of August 6, 1943 for service in the Armed Force."[10] In the letter, he goes on to explain that after the bombing at Pearl Harbor, he was prepared to fight in the war until he read about the United States' terms of unconditional surrender which he feared would lead to the "permanent destruction of Germany and Japan." [10] Before Lowell was transferred to the prison in Connecticut, he was held in a prison in New York City which he later wrote about in the poem "Memories of West Street and Lepke" from his book Life Studies.
Influence
In 1950, Lowell was included in the influential anthology Mid-Century American Poets as one of the key literary figures of his generation. Among his contemporaries who also appeared in that book were Muriel Rukeyser, Karl Shapiro, Elizabeth Bishop, Theodore Roethke, Randall Jarrell, and John Ciardi, all poets who came into prominence in the 1940s. From 1950 to 1953, Lowell taught in the well-reputed Iowa Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa, together with Paul Engle, Robie Macauley, and Anthony Hecht.[1][11][12] Later, Donald James Winslow hired Lowell to teach at Boston University, where his students included the poets Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton.[13] Over the years, he taught at a number of other universities including the University of Cincinnati, Yale University, Harvard University, and the New School for Social Research.[1]
During the late 1960s Lowell was active in the civil rights movement and opposed the US involvement in Vietnam. His participation in the October 1967 peace march in Washington, DC and his subsequent arrest would be described in the early sections of Norman Mailer's The Armies of the Night. In that book, Mailer wrote, "[Lowell spoke] in his fine stammering voice which gave the impression that life rushed at him in a series of hurdles and some he succeeded in jumping and some he did not." He also wrote that "all flaws considered, Lowell was still a fine, good, and honorable man."[14]
In 1964, Lowell stated, "The poets who most directly influenced me . . .were Allen Tate, Elizabeth Bishop, and William Carlos Williams. An unlikely combination!. . .but you can see that Bishop is a sort of bridge between Tate's formalism and Williams's informal art."[15]
By 1967, he was the most public, well-known American poet; in June, he appeared on the cover of Time magazine as part of a lengthy cover story on American poetry in which he was praised as "the best American poet of his generation."[16][17] Although the article gave a general overview of modern American poetry (mentioning Lowell's contemporaries like John Berryman and Elizabeth Bishop), Lowell's life, career, and place in the American literary canon remained the article's focus.
Relationships
Lowell married the novelist Jean Stafford in 1940. Before their marriage, in 1938, Lowell and Stafford got into a serious car accident, in which Lowell was at the wheel, that left Stafford permanently scarred, while Lowell walked away unscathed.[18] The couple had a tumultuous marriage that ended in 1948. The poet Anthony Hecht characterized the marriage as "a tormented and tormenting one."[19] Then, shortly thereafter, in 1949 Lowell married the writer Elizabeth Hardwick with whom he had a daughter, Harriet, in 1957. Later, the press would characterize their marriage as "restless and emotionally harrowing." [20] After 23 years of marriage to Elizabeth Hardwick, in 1970, Lowell left her for the British author Lady Caroline Blackwood. Blackwood and Lowell were married in 1972 in England where they decided to settle and where they raised their son, Sheridan.
Lowell had a close friendship with the poet Elizabeth Bishop that lasted from 1947 until Lowell's death in 1977. Both writers relied upon one another for feedback on their poetry (which is in evidence in their voluminous correspondence, published in the book Words in Air: the Complete Correspondence between Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell in 2008) and thereby influenced one another's work.[21] Bishop's influence over Lowell can be seen at work in at least two of Lowell's poems: "The Scream" (inspired by Bishop's short story "In the Village") and "Skunk Hour" (inspired by Bishop's poem "The Armadillo").[22][23]
Illness
Lowell suffered from manic depression and was hospitalized many times throughout his adult life for this mental illness.[24] Although his manic depression was often a great burden (for himself and his family), the subject of that mental illness led to some of his most important poetry, particularly as it manifested itself in his book Life Studies. When he was fifty, Lowell began taking lithium to treat his mental illness. The editor of Lowell's Letters, Saskia Hamilton notes, "Lithium treatment relieved him from suffering the idea that he was morally and emotionally responsible for the fact that he relapsed. However, it did not entirely prevent relapses. . .And he was troubled and anxious about the impact of his relapses on his family and friends until the end of his life." [25]
Lowell died in 1977, having suffered a heart attack in a cab in New York City on his way to see his ex-wife, Elizabeth Hardwick. He was buried in Stark Cemetery, Dunbarton, New Hampshire.

Comparing and Contrasting the Backgrounds of Authors Mike Rose and Richard Rodriguez
Education is a commonly discussed in personal essays . Some focus on the underlying problems of the educational system Others focus on the difference in educational experiences that people from different backgrounds have . Still , there are those who attempt to tackle the experience of learning through the classroom and how this learning affects their development as individuals . Mike Rose , in his essay , I Just Wanna be Average ' and Richard Rodriguez , in his work The Achievement of Desire ' focus on two prominent issues of education in society . The former tackles the problem of underachievement

br while the latter speaks of the cultural differences between the home and the school most especially for the working class children
Both use their personal experiences as an example of the they are pursuing . Mike Rose recounts his experiences in vocational education in to elaborate on the problems of such system . He uses his own underachievement to highlight how the system fails to inculcate and teach the students the proper skills and knowledge that will prepare them for working . Rose (2007 ) stated
Vocational education has aimed at increasing the economic opportunities of students who do not do well in our schools . Some serious programs succeed in doing that , and through exceptional teachers .students learn to develop hypotheses and troubleshoot , reason through a problem , and communicate effectively - the true job skills . The vocational track however , is most often a place for those who are just not making it , a dumping ground for the disaffected
He points out that vocational education has been used in the way for which it was created but as a place to put students who seem to not have what it takes to pursue further studies
On the other hand , Rodriguez makes use of his personal experience to discuss the life of a scholarship boy . More importantly , he tells his own story in to explain how the differences in the culture of the school and of the home and how a student must make a choice between the two . Rodriguez explains how he , at first , tried to strike a balance between the two but later on chose to live the academic life . He essay describes his struggles as he was growing up in two different cultures Rodriguez (2007 ) wrote , A primary reason for my success in the classroom was that I couldn 't forget that schooling was changing me and separating me from the life I enjoyed before becoming a student ' He chose to turn back from his life at home and instead attempt to enter the culture of academics
Although Rose and Rodriguez recounted their personal experiences in their essay , they utilized different styles . Rose told his story from his own eyes . He wrote things as he saw it before . He made no reference to theories or facts . On the other hand , Rodriguez was more scholarly in his essay . He utilized Hoggart 's of a scholarship boy ' to explain his experiences . He focused more on explaining what...