It's still April, still National Poetry Month. So let's take a
look at a Victorian era poet. Writers pull from their background
experiences to write both fiction and non-fiction, and poets do
the same. Elizabeth Barrett lived in the early part of the
nineteenth century. In 1821, at age 15, she had an accident that
injured her spine. She became an invalid, spending most of her
time in her bedroom at her parents home. Some twenty years later
she met Robert Browning and married him secretly after a year's
time. Her parents were against the marriage. Perhaps they were
overly protective of their invalid daughter. Or maybe they just
didn't like the man she'd chosen to spend her life with. They
forbade her to marry Robert Browning, but she defied them and
fled with him. They married and moved to Italy where she had a
son and regained her health. The sunny climate and the joy in
her marriage were most likely factors in healing her body. But
her heart had one sore spot. She wrote regularly to her parents
who still liv