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Benjamin Franklin King Jr

I lived from 1857-1894.

Information on King's life is hard to come by. I rely on the summary by Glenn Blalock.



Ben King, born on March 17, 1857 in St. Joseph, Michigan, married Aseneth Belle Latham, of St. Joseph, on November 27, 1883, in Chicago, and had two sons by her.



King belonged to the Chicago Press Club and to the Whitechapel Club, which attracted authors and journalist. King published verse in newspapers and journals like The Century, sometimes under the pseudonym Bow Hackley.



King died on tour, April 8, 1894, in Bowling Green, Kentucky, after a public reading the previous night before, and two days later was buried in St. Joseph. It was friends from the Press Club who published Ben King's Verse in 1894, a collection reprinted many times, because King's work was popular.









( Bibliography taken from Representative Poetry online)

My poetry

  • The Pessimist
    Nothing to do but work,
            Nothing to eat but food,
    23 lines, 1 comment
  • If I should die
    If I should die to-night
            And you should come to my cold corpse and say,
    15 lines, 2 comments
  • How Often
    They stood on the bridge at midnight,
    In a park not far&nbs
    12 lines
  • Toboggan
    Down from the hills and over the snow
    Swift as a meteor's flash we go,
    33 lines
  • Injun Summah
    De Injun summah's comin',
    De bees is all froo hummin',
    32 lines
  • The Hair-Tonic Bottle
    HOW dear to my heart is the old village drugstore,
      When tired and thirsty it comes to my view.
    22 lines

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