‘I Must Go Down to the Seas Again’: The Poet Laureate of Saltwater and Sail

‘I Must Go Down to the Seas Again’: The Poet Laureate of Saltwater and Sail
A rough voyage to Chili left John Masefield violently ill and, upon arrival at port, he was declared a DBS, "distressed British seaman." Oliver Denker/Shutterstock
Jeff Minick
Updated:
Throughout his long life, John Edward Masefield (1878–1967) wrote a shelf full of novels, stories, essays, plays, and histories. The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography acclaimed his “Gallipoli” as “one of the finest accounts we have of modern warfare,” and two of his books for the younger set, “The Midnight Folk” and “The Box of Delights,” remain in print and are considered classics of children’s literature.

But while he lived, Masefield won his highest accolades for his poetry.

Jeff Minick
Jeff Minick
Author
Jeff Minick has four children and a growing platoon of grandchildren. For 20 years, he taught history, literature, and Latin to seminars of homeschooling students in Asheville, N.C. He is the author of two novels, “Amanda Bell” and “Dust on Their Wings,” and two works of nonfiction, “Learning as I Go” and “Movies Make the Man.” Today, he lives and writes in Front Royal, Va.
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