John Gray (poet) French, German, Latin, music and art. In 1882 he passed the Civil Service exams and, five years later, the University of London matriculation exams. He joined the Foreign Office where he became a librarian. Gray is best known today as an aesthetic poet of the 1890s and as a friend of Ernest Dowson, Aubrey Beardsley and Oscar Wilde. He was also a talented translator, bringing works by the French Symbolists Stéphane Mallarmé, Paul Verlaine, Jules Laforgue and Arthur Rimbaud into English, often for the first time. He is purported to be the inspiration behind the title character in Wilde's "The
Poet Lore in translation the work of writers from Asia, South America, and the Middle East. In its early decades, the magazine featured poetry by such luminaries as Rabindranath Tagore, Frederic Mistral, Rainier Maria Rilke, Stephane Mallarmé, and Paul Verlaine. The first translation of Chekhov's "The Seagull" appeared in its pages. The Writer's Center, a literary non-profit based near Washington, DC, currently publishes "Poet Lore" in semi-annual installments, featuring poetry by established writers side by side with those just breaking into print. "Poet Lore" also publishes essays of interest to poets and readers, as well as reviews of new books of poetry.