TWA Poet: James Whitcomb Riley

1849 - 1916

Today is the birthday of poet James Whitcomb Riley, born in Greenfield, Indiana, in 1849. He wrote about a thousand poems, and most of them are written in the Hoosier dialect of central Indiana. He didn't like school, and was often in trouble, but his parents didn't push him; his father, who was a lawyer, felt he should shape his own education by follow…