William Henry Davies (1871 – 1940) was born in Pil, Newport. Davies spent a significant part of his life as a tramp or hobo, in the United Kingdom and United States, but became one of the most popular poets of his time. The principal themes in his work are observations about life’s hardships, the ways in which the human condition is reflected in nature, his own tramping adventures and the various characters he met. His most famous work was The Autobiography of a Super-Tramp, published in 1908, which covers his life in the USA between 1893 and 1899. During this period he crossed the Atlantic at least seven times, working on cattle ships. He travelled through many of the states, sometimes begging, sometimes taking seasonal work, but often ending up spending any savings on a drinking spree with a fellow traveller. His most famous poem ‘Leisure‘ is one of the most well-known poems in the English language.
Website – Wikipedia entry
Books
- The Autobiography of a Super-Tramp. 1908.
- Collected Poems. (reprint) 2012