A Heap o' Livin'

About

Edgar Guest — 'the People's Poet,' whose syndicated verses reached an estimated 300 million readers at peak circulation — wrote the populist democratic verse that the literary establishment disdained and the public loved. His poems celebrate home, family, ordinary contentment, and the dignity of working-class life in simple rhymes of genuine warmth. 'It Takes a Heap o' Living to Make a House a Home' is his best-known piece. As reading material he is the polar opposite of the modernist canon — and for family or casual group performance, completely reliable.