Madison Julius Cawein (pronounced CAW-wine), known as “the Keats of Kentucky”, was born in Louisville, Kentucky, on 23rd March 1865. He often walked with his father, discovering the joys of his natural surroundings and unwittingly building the foundational love for nature upon which he based his poetry. He was prolific as a poet but struggled to find a large audience for most of what he published. However that volume of work should not detract you from its quality. For the last few years of his life he and his family were in a desperate financial position. He died on December 8th, 1914 of apoplexy. He was 49. Friends, fans and newspapers eulogized him as one of the greatest living American poets, and he was buried in Cave Hill Cemetery in Louisville, alongside his father. 1921 saw the publication of The Story of a Poet, and within its pages is a deeply affecting appraisal by Otto Arthur Rothert, who writes; Like Poe and Keats and many other true poets, Cawein did not receive a general recognition while he was still writing. He now awaits the wide and deserved recognition which time alone bestows. That the number of appreciators of Cawein’s works never decreased but slowly increased during his life-time points toward an enduring fame... Cawein’s greatest hope was that his poetry would live.
