Paul Verlaine with Verlaine, Mallarmé, Rimbaud, Paul Valéry, Albert Samain and many others began to be referred to as "Symbolists." These poets would often share themes that parallel Schopenhauer's aesthetics and notions of will, fatality and unconscious forces, and used themes of sex (such as prostitutes), the city, irrational phenomena (delirium, dreams, narcotics, alcohol), and sometimes a vaguely medieval setting. In poetry, the symbolist procedure—as typified by Verlaine—was to use subtle suggestion instead of precise statement (rhetoric was banned) and to evoke moods and feelings through the magic of words and repeated sounds and the cadence of verse (musicality) and metrical innovation.
Michael Blackburn (poet) Last of Harry. In 1988 he became a Fellow of the RSA. From 2005–2008 he was the Royal Literary Fund fellow at the University of Lincoln where he now teaches English Literature and Creative Writing. Michael Blackburn (poet) Michael Blackburn (born 1954) is a British poet. From 1976 to 1978 Blackburn was an editor on Poetry & Audience, the poetry magazine produced by The School of English at the University of Leeds. Together with the American poet, Michael Coffey, he edited a special translations issue. During the early-to-mid-1980s he was an editor on Stand Magazine, Newcastle Upon Tyne. In 1985