The Old Soldier's Story: Poems and Prose Sketches

The opening of this collection finds us seated at a banquet, listening to an old soldier spin his yarns. He tells of cannonballs and confusion, of injuries both absurd and devastating, and in doing so, he reveals something essential about the American voice in verse: plain-spoken, generous, aching with feeling it won't quite name. James Whitcomb Riley, the "Hoosier Poet," wrote with his ear pressed to the heartbeat of ordinary life, and these poems and sketches capture that music perfectly. From tender verses about childhood to rueful reflections on war, from laugh-out-loud humor to the quiet devastation of loss, Riley's work lives in the space between. His dialect verses and prose sketches feel immediate, authentic as a handshake or a porch story at dusk. What makes this collection endure is its fundamental kindness. Riley wrote about people who matter, who hurt, who laugh anyway.