The Poet

Raymond Garfield Dandridge 1882 (Cincinnati, Ohio) – 1930 (Cincinnati, Ohio)



The poet sits and dreams and dreams;
He scans his verse; he probes his themes.

Then turns to stretch or stir about,
Lest, like his thoughts, his strength give out.

Then off to bed, for he must rise
And cord some wood, or tamp some ties,

Or break a field of fertile soil,
Or do some other manual toil.

He dare not live by wage of pen,
Most poorly paid of poor paid men,

With shoes o’er-run, and threadbare clothes,—
And editors among the foes

Who mock his song, deny him bread,
Then sing his praise when he is dead.
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Submitted by naama on July 13, 2020

Modified on March 05, 2023

30 sec read
9

Quick analysis:

Scheme AA BB CC DD EE XX FF
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 515
Words 101
Stanzas 7
Stanza Lengths 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2

Raymond Garfield Dandridge

Raymond Garfield Dandridge (1882/1883-1930) was an American poet who was born and lived in Cincinnati, Ohio. In 1911 he was partially paralyzed, leaving him bedridden for the rest of his life, and subsequently taught himself to write with his left hand. He published three volumes of poetry: Penciled Poems (Powell & White, 1917), The Poet and Other Poems (Powell & White, 1920), and Zalka Peetruza and Other Poems (McDonald, 1928). Influenced by Paul Laurence Dunbar, he wrote many of his poems in African-American dialect. He made his living primarily by selling coal by telephone, and was also literary editor of the Cincinnati Journal.  more…

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