author
Will Carleton
1845–1912
Best remembered for poems that brought everyday farm life into American popular culture, this Michigan writer turned plainspoken stories of work, family, and hardship into verse that wide audiences could instantly recognize. His best-known poem, "Over the Hill to the Poorhouse," helped make him one of the most widely read rural poets of his time.
3 Audiobooks
About the author
Born in Lenawee County, Michigan, in 1845, Will Carleton grew up in the rural world that would shape nearly all of his writing. He graduated from Hillsdale College in 1869, worked in journalism, and soon found a large audience for poems that drew on country speech, domestic scenes, and the emotional lives of ordinary people.
Carleton became especially well known after the success of "Over the Hill to the Poorhouse" and went on to publish collections including Farm Ballads, Farm Legends, and City Ballads. His work often focused on marriage, aging, poverty, and the changing rhythms of American life, using a direct style that made his poems popular with readers far beyond literary circles.
He later built a career as a lecturer and editor as well as a poet, and remained closely associated with the image of the American countryside. Though literary tastes changed after his lifetime, he is still remembered as a vivid voice of nineteenth-century rural America.