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List Price: $28.95Amazon.com's Price: $19.11 You Save: $9.84 (34%)as of 12/11/2009 08:55 EST
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 811.4
EAN: 9780253207777
ISBN: 0253207770
Label: Indiana University Press
Manufacturer: Indiana University Press
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 920
Publication Date: March 01, 1993
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Studio: Indiana University Press
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Product Description:
Few lives have left so vivid an impression upon a native environment as that of James Whitcomb Riley, the Hoosier Poet. His folksy, down-home rhymes are still enormously popular in his native state and beyond. This publication brings back into print the complete Riley repertoire of more than 1,000 poems, including such all-time favorites as "Little Orphant Annie" (far and away the best-loved of all Riley characters), "The Raggedy Man," "Our Hired Girl," "A Barefoot Boy," "The Bumblebee," "Granny," and "When the Frost Is on the Punkin." It is said that Indiana's best-known poet did not portray but invented the typical Hoosier. Applying imaginative skill, Riley altered and adapted the people around him to suit his purpose. As Jeannette Covert Nolan once put it, the figure who emerged was "a mellow, humorous rustic, a quaint, bucolic philosopher, unlettered but gifted with an earthy shrewdness, a peasant wisdom, a heart of gold, speaking a drawling, hybrid tongue, a dubious dialect as yet unidentified by any philologist." In his heyday Riley was famous all over the world. Though often called a children's poet, he actually wrote about children for adults, delighting in emotional reminders of an irretrievable past -- perhaps one that never quite existed. Throughout his life Riley looked back wistfully and sentimentally upon his childhood days, turning the longings and unfulfilled dreams of youth into verse. So celebrated was he in Indiana that in many public elementary schools, students were required to memorize and recite one of his poems every week for admiring audiences of visiting parents.
If I Knew What Poets KnowIf I knew what poets know, Did I know what poets do, If I knew what poets know, Would I write a rhyme Would I sing a song, I would find a themeOf the buds that never blow Sadder than the pigeon's coo Sweeter than the placid flow In the summer-time? When the days are long? Of the fairest dream:Would I sing of golden seeds Where I found a heart in pain, I would sing of love that livesSpringing up in ironweeds? I would make it glad again; On the errors it forgives:And of rain-drop turned to snow, And the false should be the true, And the world would better growIf I knew what poets know? Did I know what poets do. If I knew what poets know. -- James Whitcomb Riley
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James Whitcomb Riley is one of the few poets to deal with the death of youngsters and oldsters alike. His poems give comfort to any who have experienced loss. He is little known today for these poems but they appear throughout this magnificent book. In these complete works there are love poems, grief poems and humorous poems told with such lyrical expertise and wisdom from someone who has experienced every emotion he writes about. Although his style is old fashioned rhyming poetry it is truly ... Read More
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Twas struck with words as ne'r b'fore,
those gentle flowed from a poet of yore.
Each letter 'round our hearts was wrapt,
melodies of beauty lovely tapt.
Who'd er'er thunk that a pokety ole' man,
could know our thoughts and understan.
There ain't any we'd recomand as highly,
as Indyanna's James Whitcomb Riley.
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After mulling over volumes like the "Viking Portable Library" it is refreshing to have an entire volume of light-hearted, folksy fun. Of course, Riley's works aren't ALL in that vein, but favorites like Ragedy Man and Little Orphan Annie are, and that's why I like him. Being from California, I hardly know how to use the type of speech inflections and what-not that Riley hasn't written into these rhyming tales. But the closer I get to being able to master such speech the more it entertains my kids! ... Read More
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When I was a kid, we had a friend who would recite "Little Orphant Annie" to us before we went to bed. I'll be damned if that poem didn't scare me into being a good kid! I plan on reading it to my 3 year old tonight with the hopes of scaring her straight enough to start being nice to her baby brother! One can dream, right?.....
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Folksy Hoosier James Whitcomb Riley (1849 - 1916) is America's premier poet of the sentimental. The Complete Poetical Works Of James Whitcomb Riley brings together over 1,000 touching, humorous, easy to read, and intelligent but non - intellectual poems, many filled with longing for irretrievable childhood innocence, freedom, and joy. Today's readers will find the volume a genuine time capsule into the past; these poems will evoke not only the reader's own memories of childhood, but also a simpler ... Read More
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Dewey Decimal Number: 811.4
EAN: 9780253207777
ISBN: 0253207770
Label: Indiana University Press
Manufacturer: Indiana University Press
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 920
Publication Date: March 01, 1993
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Studio: Indiana University Press