Friday, September 28, 2012

Robert Dinsmoor ~ The Rustic Bard of Windham, New Hampshire



I’ve seen an old copy of Poems of Robert Dinsmoor “The Rustic Bard” compiled by Leonard Allison Morrison from 1898.  Morrison is also the author of several histories of Windham, New Hampshire.  It’s been a long time since there has been a new volume of Dinsmoor’s poems.  Now there is a new volume of Robert Dinsmoor’s Scotch-Irish Poems coming soon, not here, but in the United Kingdom! 

This new book, edited by Frank Ferguson and Alister McReynolds, has been published by the Ulster Historical Foundation.  His poetry has been long out of print, but it is interesting to note that this new volume of his works is published in the United Kingdom by the Ulster Historical Foundation.  The literature experts Ferguson and McReynolds have included a detailed scholarly introduction. 

Robert Dinsmoor was born in Londonderry, New Hampshire on 7 October 1757.  He was a soldier at the Battle of Burgoyne, and is listed on the Windham Honor Roll under the names of men who served in the American Revolution.  His book Incidental Poems was first published in 1828.   He inspired other local poets, like Haverhill’s John Greenleaf Whittier.  Dinsmoor wrote his poetry in a Scots lilt that is no longer heard in Londonderry, but was still common in his lifetime.  For this reason he is often described as “America’s Robert Burns”.  Robert Dinsmoor died in Windham, New Hampshire, in 1836.
  
To order:

A previous blog post on Robert Dinsmoor (with one of his poems) at this link:

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Copyright 2012, Heather Wilkinson Rojo

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