His later volumes-The Shoes of Happiness (1915), The Gates of Paradise (1920), and New Poems (1932)-reveal a continuing concern for the underdog but also, in the love lyrics and the flights of rhetoric, a thin reedy voice coupled with a pedestrian vocabulary. He followed it with Lincoln and Other Poems (1901).įor the next 40 years Markham's reputation slowly deflated as newer poetic styles came into fashion. Before the year was out, Markham's first collection, The Man with the Hoe and Other Poems, appeared. This protest against exploited labor "flew eastward across the continent like a contagion" and on around the world. 15, 1899, the San Francisco Examiner published "The Man with the Hoe," 49 lines of traditional blank verse inspired by Jean François Millet's painting. He married his third wife, Anna Murphy, in 1897. On his first trip east, in 1893, he met William Dean Howells and Edmund Clarence Stedman both had admired his work. During the next 10 years, under the adopted name of Edwin Markham, he built up a small reputation as a poet in the pages of the Century Magazine, the Overland Monthly, and Scribner's Magazine. In 1887 he remarried and became a school principal in Oakland. In 1884 he divorced his wife and became a school headmaster in Hayward. In 1875 he married Annie Cox and became county superintendent of schools. Markham's first teaching jobs were in the mountains of San Luis Obispo County, Calif., then at Christian College in Santa Rosa, and finally at Coloma. Two years later he transferred to San Jose State Normal School, from which he graduated in 1872. Markham attended rural schools, worked as a cowboy and ranch hand, ran away from home at least once, and at the age of 16 entered California College in Vacaville.
When he was 4, his mother took him to a small farm north of San Francisco shortly thereafter she remarried. Despite his numerous accolades, however, none of his later books achieved the success of the first two.Edwin Markham American poet, leapt to fame with one poem, "The Man with the Hoe."Įdwin Markham was born Charles Edward Anson Markham in Oregon City, Ore., on April 23, 1852, the youngest of 10 children. Throughout Markham's later life, many readers viewed him as an important voice in American poetry, a position signified by honors such as his election in 1908 to the National Institute of Arts and Letters.
In 1922, at the conclusion to the dedication of the Lincoln Memorial, Markham read a revised version of his poem, "Lincoln the Man of the People." Markham also wrote a number of epigrams, of which the best known is Outwitted. He also gave much of his time to organizations such as the Poetry Society of America, which he established in 1910. Nash, "'etween publications, Markham lectured and wrote in other genres, including essays and nonfiction prose. Henry Van Dyke of Princeton said, "Edwin Markham's Lincoln is the greatest poem ever written on the immortal martyr, and the greatest that ever will be written." Later that year, Markham was filmed reciting the poem by Lee De Forest in his Phonofilm sound-on-film process.Īs recounted by literary biographer William R. In 1922, Markham's poem "Lincoln, the Man of the People" was selected from 250 entries to be read at the dedication of the Lincoln Memorial. These happened as often as his poetry readings.Ī photograph of Markham in his later years In New York, he gave many lectures to labor groups. Markham's poem was published, and it became quite popular very soon. His main inspiration was a French painting of the same name (in French, L'homme à la houe) by Jean-François Millet. While in Oakland, he became well acquainted with many other famous contemporary writers and poets, such as Joaquin Miller, Ina Coolbrith, Charles Warren Stoddard, and Edmund Clarence Stedman.Įdwin Markham's most famous poem, "The Man with the Hoe," which accented laborers' hardships, was first presented at a public poetry reading in 1898. He also accepted a job as principal of Tompkins Observation School in Oakland, California, in 1890. While residing in El Dorado County, Markham became a member of Placerville Masonic Lodge. Markham taught literature in El Dorado County until 1879, when he became education superintendent of the county.
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