Sir Christopher Bruce Ricks, FBA (born 1933) is a British literary critic and scholar. He is the William M. and Sara B. Warren Professor of the Humanities at Boston University (U.S.) and Co-Director of the Editorial Institute at Boston University, and was Professor of Poetry at the University of Oxford (England) from 2004 to 2009. He is the immediate past-president of the Association of Literary Scholars and Critics. He is known as a champion of Victorian poetry; an enthusiast of Bob Dylan, whose lyrics he has analysed at book-length; a trenchant reviewer of writers he considers pretentious (Marshall McLuhan, Christopher Norris, Geoffrey Hartman, Stanley Fish); and a warm reviewer of those he thinks humane or humorous (F. R. Leavis, W. K. Wimsatt, Christina Stead). Hugh Kenner has praised his 'intent eloquence', and Geoffrey Hill his 'unrivalled critical intelligence'.W. H. Auden described Ricks as 'exactly the kind of critic every poet dreams of finding'.. John Carey calls him the 'greatest living critic.

Bob Dylan ( /ˈdɪlən/), born Robert Allen Zimmerman on May 24, 1941, is an American singer-songwriter, musician and artist. He has been an influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly reluctant figurehead of social unrest. A number of Dylan's early songs, such as "Blowin' in the Wind" and "The Times They Are a-Changin'", became anthems for the US civil rights and anti-war movements. Leaving his initial base in the culture of folk music behind, Dylan's six-minute single "Like a Rolling Stone" has been described as radically altering the parameters of popular music in 1965. However, his recordings employing electric instruments attracted denunciation and criticism from others in the folk movement.

Dylan's lyrics incorporated a variety of political, social, philosophical, and literary influences. They defied existing pop music conventions and appealed hugely to the then burgeoning counterculture. Initially inspired by the songs of Woody Guthrie,Robert Johnson, and Hank Williams, as well as the music and performance styles of Buddy Holly and Little Richard, Dylan has both amplified and personalized musical genres. His recording career, spanning fifty years, has explored numerous distinct traditions in American song—from folk, blues and country to gospel, rock and roll, and rockabilly to English, Scottish, and Irish folk music, embracing even jazz and swing.

Saskia Hamilton (born 1967 Washington, D.C.) is an American poet. She graduated from Kenyon College with a B.A., and from New York University with an M.A. She worked for the Folger Shakespeare Library, and the Lannan Foundation and now teaches at Barnard College.

John Gross FRSL (12 March 1935 – 10 January 2011 ) was an eminent English man of letters, a notable author, anthologist, literary and theatrical critic.The Spectator magazine called Gross “the best-read man in Britain”, as did The Guardian. He was the editor of The Times Literary Supplement from 1974 to 1981, senior book editor and book critic on the staff of The New York Times from 1983 to 1989, and theatre critic for The Sunday Telegraph from 1989 to 2005. He also worked as assistant editor on Encounter and as literary editor of both The New Statesman and Spectator magazines.

Gross was born and raised in London’s East End, to Abraham Gross, a Jewish immigrant from the Polish-Jewish town of Gorokhov, from where Gross’s family escaped before the entire Jewish population was killed in the Holocaust, and to Muriel Gross, also of East European Jewish origin, whose parents came from Vitebsk, an area later made famous by the paintings of Chagall. Tony Gross, who founded Cutler and Gross, an eyewear business, is his brother. Among his cousins was the composer Lionel Bart.

Robert A. "Bob" Ricks (born October 14, 1944) is an American law enforcement professional from Texas and Oklahoma. Ricks has worked for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Governor of Oklahoma and in local law enforcement. He is best known as the former FBI Assistant Special Agent in Charge during the 1993 Waco Siege and as FBI Special Agent in Charge during the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.

Following his retirement from federal service, Ricks served as the Oklahoma Secretary of Safety and Security under Governor of Oklahoma Frank Keating. Ricks serve as Secretary during the Keating's entire term as Governor, from 1995 to 2003. Concurrent with his service as Secretary, Ricks was also appointed by Keating to serve as his Commissioner of the Oklahoma Department of Public Safety.

Ricks was born in Houston, Texas, and received his early education in Del Rio, Texas. He received his Bachelor of Business Administration from Baylor University in 1967 and his Juris Doctor degree from Baylor Law School in 1969, where he served as an Editor of the Baylor Law Review and was a member of Phi Delta Phi.