Vachel Nicholas Lindsay was born in Springfield in 1879. In Central Illinois tradition, Lindsay was schooled in the virtues of Abraham Lincoln, and like Lincoln developed a fascination with the lives of the common people.

Lindsay attended Hiram College in Hiram, Ohio, for three years before studying art in Chicago and New York City. He later turned to poetry, a medium in which he found much greater success. After college, Lindsay spent much of his life walking across the country, performing and distributing copies of his poetry in exchange for bed and board.

Lindsay's verse is characterized by its lyric quality and its simple, forceful rhythms; his performances were remarkable for their animation. Among his volumes of poetry are The Congo and Other Poems (1914) and Every Soul Is a Circus (1929).

Excerpted from: http://www.americanpoems.com/poets/lindsay