Welcome back to the Daily Poem here in the Close Reeds Podcast Network. I'm David Kern.

Today's poem is a folk song. As I mentioned last week, I'm going to be bringing you a variety of folk songs and spirituals and even some Native American poetry, some things that are that define the poetry of our country,

but didn't necessarily come from, you know, the literary establishment or from the

tradition of, traditions of Europe, the, you know, sort of grand poetic traditions.

And the poem that I'm going to read today is called Starving to Death on a Government claim.

It's a narrative poem. It's also called the Lane County Bachelor.

According to the Library of Congress, this was written by Vance Randolph, who was a singer who lived from 1892 to

1980. And it was first published in a LP called Songs of the Mormons and Songs of the West.

He was, Vance Randolph himself, was a

folklorist famous for his documentation of Ozark Folklife, and I believe this was

recorded originally as a song in 1941. And Lane County is a, that's referred to in the song,

is in Kansas. So there's a lot of different things that play here,

some mystery about exactly where it comes from

and what's about and all that.

But that's one of the beautiful things about folk songs.

So you can go on YouTube and you can find this played as a song,

but I'm going to read it today as a narrative poem.

I'm just going to read it.

I'm not going to sing it, obviously.

So here it is. Frank Baker is my name and a bachelor I am. I'm keeping old batch on an elegant plan. You'll find me out west in the county of Lane. I'm starving to death on a government claim. My house it is built of the natural soil. The walls are erected according to oil. The roof has no pitch but is level and plain, and I always get wet when it happens

to rain. Hurrah for Lane County, the land of the free, the home of the grasshopper bedbug and

flee. I'll sing loud its praises and tell of its fame while starving to

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