Window on the Hill

LibriVox volunteers bring you 19 recordings of The Window on the Hill by Madison Julius Cawein. This was the Weekly Poetry project for April 22, 2012.

Madison Julius Cawein was born in Louisville, Kentucky, the fifth child of William and Christiana (Stelsly) Cawein. His father made patent medicines from herbs. Cawein thus became acquainted with and developed a love for local nature as a child. After graduating from high school, Cawein worked in a pool hall in Louisville as a cashier in Waddill's New-market, which also served as a gambling house. He worked there for six years, saving his pay so he could return home to write. His output was thirty-six books and 1,500 poems. His writing presented Kentucky scenes in a language echoing Percy Bysshe Shelley and John Keats. He soon earned the nickname the "Keats of Kentucky". He was popular enough that, by 1900, he told the Louisville Courier-Journal that his income from publishing poetry in magazines amounted to about $100 a month (Summary by Wikipedia)