Strickland Gillilan was born on 21 September 1869 in Jackson County, Ohio, a region whose rural rhythms, small-town sociability, and vigorous political culture supplied much of the material from which he would make a career. He died on 25 April 1954 in Baltimore, Maryland, after a long life spent as a journalist, lecturer, humorist, versifier, and public entertainer. In the literary histories that privilege modernism…
“I am a professional public speaker, not one who bugles around to the boys for the reward of a meal.”
Neighbourhood:
American Poets, Children's Verse, Folk & Ballad Poets, Light Verse Poets
Emotional landscape: Joy, Wonder, Irony
Joseph Milton Hayes, known to the public as J. Milton Hayes, was born in Bristol on 13 January 1884 and died on 6 February 1940. During his lifetime he became one of the best-known writers of recitation verse in Britain, a poet whose work was heard as often as it was read. His celebrity rested especially on “The Green Eye of the Little Yellow God,” a narrative poem whose opening line, “There’s a one-eyed yellow idol…
“It appeals to the imagination from the start: those colours, green and yellow, create an atmosphere. Then India, everyone has his own idea of India. Don't tell the public too much. Strike chords.”
Neighbourhood:
Folk & Ballad Poets, Light Verse Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Despair, Longing
