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He also opened Kamp Kilmer, an artistic collective in Hollywood that provided space and company for poets, painters, musicians and filmmakers.

John Cooper Clarke is about to become the first poet to headline a UK arena, and is responsible for the lyrics to one of the world's most streamed songs of recent years.

The current and widely beloved president, Michael Higgins, was known more as a poet and academic than as a politician.

In Ravenna, the royal couple will view the tomb of the Italian writer Dante, and the Queen will tour a museum commemorating the poet Lord Byron.

Indeed, modern-day affirmative stereotypes about the Irish as a drunken and sentimental tribe of poets, dreamers and pugilists closely mirror older, more negative stereotypes, rendered charming instead of threatening.