Charles Badger Clark

Charles Badger Clark (1883-1957) was an American poet.^[1][2][3][4]

Biography

Charles Badger Clark was born on January 1, 1883 in Albia, Iowa.^[1][5] His family moved to Dakota Territory, where his father served as a Methodist preacher in Huron, Mitchell, Deadwood and Hot Springs.^[1][2][3] He dropped out of Dakota Wesleyan University after he clashed with one of its founders, C.B. Clark.^[1][5] He travelled to Cuba, returned to Deadwood, South Dakota, where he contracted tuberculosis, then moved to Tombstone, Arizona to assuage his illness with the dry weather.^[3][1][4][5] He returned again to South Dakota in 1910 to take care of his ailing father.^[1][2][3][4] There, he contracted tuberculosis.^[3] In 1925, he moved to a cabin in Custer State Park in the Black Hills of South Dakota, where he lived for thirty years.^{[1][2][4][6][5]}

In 1937, he was named the Poet Laureate of South Dakota by Governor Leslie Jensen.^[7][2] His work was published in Sunset Magazine, Pacific Monthly, Arizona Highways, Colliers, Century Magazine, the Rotarian, and Scribners.^[7]

He died on September 26, 1957.^[3]

His poem entitled 'Lead by America' was performed by the Fred Waring Chorus in 1957.^[5] In 1969, Bob Dylan recorded 'Spanish is the Loving Tongue'.^[3] In America by Heart, Sarah Palin quotes his poem entitled 'A Cowboy's Prayer' as one of the prayers she likes to say.^[8]

Bibliography

• Sun and Saddle Leather (1919)
• Spike (1925)
• When Hot Springs Was a Pup (1927)
• God of the Open
• Sky Lines and Wood Smoke (1935)
• Boot and Bylines (posthumous, 1978)
• Singleton (posthumous, 1978)

References

1. ^ ^{a b c d e f g} Badger Clark Memorial Society, biography
2. ^ ^{a b c d e} Dakota Wesleyan University biography
3. ^ ^{a b c d e f g} Black Hills Visitor Magazine biography
4. ^ ^{a b c d} Marsha Trimble, 'Who is Badger Clark?', in True West Magazine, 08/25/2009 [1]
5. ^ ^{a b c d e} South Dakota Public Broadcasting biography
6. ^ Badger Hole
7. ^ ^{a b} Badger Clark Memorial Society, homepage
8. ^ Sarah Palin, America by Heart: Reflections on Family, Faith, and Flag, New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2010, pp. 230-231

Persondata
Name	Clark, Charles Badger
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	1883
Place of birth
Date of death	1957
Place of death