author
James McIntyre
1827–1906
A Scottish-born Canadian poet with a gift for turning local pride into verse, he became famous as "the Cheese Poet" for his enthusiastic poems about dairy, agriculture, and small-town life. His work is remembered for its charm, sincerity, and unusual subject matter.
1 Audiobook
Poems of James McIntyre
by James McIntyre
About the author
Born in Forres, Scotland, and baptized in 1828, he immigrated to Upper Canada while still young and built his life in Ontario. In Ingersoll he worked as a cabinet-maker, furniture dealer, and undertaker, while also writing poems about the people, landscape, and everyday industries around him.
He published Musings on the Banks of the Canadian Thames in 1884 and Poems of James McIntyre in 1889. Many readers know him best as "the Cheese Poet" because he wrote with cheerful seriousness about Canadian cheese-making and rural prosperity, a mix that made him both celebrated locally and gently mocked more broadly.
That unusual reputation is part of why he remains memorable. His poems offer a lively snapshot of 19th-century Ontario and show how deeply he cared about his adopted home, even when his most famous lines leaned toward the wonderfully unexpected.