Joaquin Miller, born Cincinnatus Hiner Miller on September 8, 1837, and dead on February 17, 1913, lived a life that seemed designed to invite legend. He was a poet, journalist, lawyer, teacher, dramatist, lecturer, rancher, and relentless self-inventor. To admirers in the nineteenth century, he was the “Poet of the Sierras,” a bard who had given the American West its own grand, romantic voice. To skeptics, he was an…
“The poet's trade is the hardest trade of all trades in the world; his compensation is the poorest; his triumphs the fewest; not one in ten thousand can earn his bread at it.”
Neighbourhood:
American Poets, Folk & Ballad Poets, Love Poets, Nature Poets, Victorian Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Despair, Longing
In the sprawling landscape of twentieth-century American letters, few figures cast as long or as peculiar a shadow as Louis Untermeyer. Born on October 1, 1885, in New York City, and dying ninety-two years later on December 18, 1977, in Newtown, Connecticut, Untermeyer occupied a unique position in American cultural life. He was not primarily remembered as a great poet himself, though he published volumes of verse. H…
“The poet is not a man who says things, but one who makes things happen.”
Neighbourhood:
American Poets, Light Verse Poets, Modernist Poets, Social Justice Poets
Emotional landscape: Despair, Sorrow, Longing
