Without poetry, we lose our way. Poets are special existence in our world. Learn a little about some of famous poets by reading our short biographies.

Patrick Kavanagh

One of the most popular modern poets of Ireland, Kavanagh was born into a rural farming family, and he never forgot his roots. His work was a straightforward representation of Irish rural life. His epic poem and perhaps his greatest offering, The Great Hunger, was published in 1942. The piece presented the poverty of country life.

Oscar Wilde

Born in Dublin, into a family of intellectuals, Wilde developed his writing style over the course of many years. By the early 1890s he was one of the most widely celebrated playwrights in London. Apart from his poems and plays, he is perhaps best known for his clever satirical (讽刺的) statements as well as his classic novel The Picture of Dorian Gray.

Shel Silverstein

An accomplished cartoonist, playwright and song writer, Silverstein is best known for his several series of poetry books. Works such as A Missing Piece, A Light in the Attic, and Where the Sidewalk Ends, are now main collections of the children’s literary genre.

John Keats

Born in London in 1795, John Keats poetry played a leading role in the second generation of the Romantic Movement, Ode to a Nightingale was one of his great poems. Keats as a poet was not highly regarded during his own lifetime, despite the fact that John Keats figured so prominently (重要地) in British poetry. He was not well accepted by polite society at that time.

Growing up, Jessica Rusnak, tried out for every athletics team possible, though she had little success. Rather than give up, she focused her efforts on building a career as a sports journalist. The difficulty Rusnak faced as a hopeful athlete also prepared her for the perseverance and patience she would require as a sports journalist.

“It’s something I’ve always loved, but I’m not athletic at all,” explains Rusnak, who works for CBC Montreal’s Daybreak, a weekday morning radio show. “I was interested in journalism and, as I got older and started to think about my career, I decided that I wanted to go into sports journalism.”

Rusnak began interning (实习) at T990 while studying at Concordia. “I was trying to get my feet wet on the morning show where I started at 5:30 a. m.,” she says. “I’d leave after the show at 10 a. m. and have a class at 11 a. m. Through that I gained precious experience.”

She transferred into communication studies at Concordia after pursuing journalism elsewhere for a year. “Concordia was a really great experience,” she says. “The class sizes were much smaller and you pretty much knew everyone in your year, so there was always someone you could ask for help.” After her internship, Rusnak was hired by TSN where she worked as a reporter for five years covering sports teams such as the Montreal Canadiens, Montreal Alouettes and Montreal Impact.

Following a brief move to Toronto in 2015 where she worked as a sports editor at Sportsnet 590 The Fan, Rusnak returned to Montreal to work for Daybreak.

Being a woman in a field still largely dominated by men added to Rusnak’s challenge—and it wasn’t something she was prepared for. Despite the challenges, Rusnak persevered (坚持) and is now well-paid, and proud to see fellow alumni (校友) working at her side. There are a few people I studied with in communications who now work in the industry.

Fears about what video games are doing to young minds have been growing for years- not least because now 97% of teenagers play them. Most parents believe they reduce children’ s socializing with real friends, damage psychological adjustment and that the violence presented in many games may be harmful.

On the other hand, some studies have suggested benefits like improved thinking skills, hand- eye co-ordination, perhaps even greater attention and creativity.

What should parents- and society at large- make of all this conflicting talk? Now a study, conducted by Oxford University psychologist Dr Andrew Przybylski, of almost 5, 000 young people in the UK has looked at both the positive and negative effects of video games together. The results, published in the journal Pediatrics, are cautiously positive about video games, but still support the old saying: Everything in moderation(适度).

Across the children, who were between 10- and 15-year-old, the results showed that the best adjusted children did play video games, but usually for less than one hour a day. These children were most likely to report: Being more sociable. Being more satisfied with their lives. Doing worse on these measures were teens that didn’t play any video games and those who spent at least half of their daily free time on video games (over 3 hours). For moderate players of video games - those who played for somewhere between 1 and 3 hours a day- there were no positive or negative effects on their psychological adjustment.

However, even the negative effects of playing video games too much were relatively insignificant compared to the effects of material deprivation(匮乏), family conflict or death of an important friend.

Actually, there was little evidence that playing video games was doing children that much good. Przybylski continued, “Some of the positive effects identified in past gaming research were mirrored in these data but the effects were quite small, suggesting that any benefits may be limited to a narrow range of action games.”