Vachel Lindsay

Nicholas Vachel Lindsay (1879–1931) was an American poet born in Springfield, Illinois. He studied at Hiram College and trained as an artist in Chicago and New York before turning to poetry, and for years he travelled on foot through the American Midwest and South, trading rhymes for food and lodging and preaching what he called a "Gospel of Beauty".

Lindsay became known as a founder of modern "singing poetry", verse written to be chanted or performed aloud with a strong ragtime beat. "General William Booth Enters into Heaven" appeared in Harriet Monroe's magazine Poetry in January 1913 and gave its name to his first widely read book that year. The Congo and Other Poems followed in 1914. He died in Springfield in 1931.