Literature / Press & broadcasting
Edgar Guest
1881–1959 · poet, newspaper columnist, radio and TV host
Detroit Free Press's 'People's Poet', who wrote some 11,000 homespun verses over six decades, syndicated nationally, and was Michigan's poet laureate.
- Born
Birmingham, England- Died
Detroit, Michigan
aged 77- Birth name
- Edgar Albert Guest
- Also known as
- Eddie Guest · The People's Poet
- Detroit years
- 1891–1959
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Guest came to Detroit from England with his family in 1891 at the age of ten and lived in the city for the rest of his life. As a teenager he went to work at the Detroit Free Press as a copy boy, became a reporter, and saw his first poem published in the paper in December 1898. His daily verse column grew into a national phenomenon: about 11,000 poems of everyday optimism and home life, syndicated in some 300 newspapers and gathered in books such as A Heap o' Livin' and Just Folks. From 1931 to 1942 he hosted a weekly Detroit radio show, and in 1951 NBC gave him the television series A Guest in Your House. Michigan named him its poet laureate in 1952. He died in Detroit in 1959 and is buried in Woodlawn Cemetery.
Highlights
- More than 60 years with the Detroit Free Press, from 1895 to 1959
- About 11,000 poems, syndicated in some 300 newspapers
- A Heap o' Livin' (1916), with the line 'It takes a heap o' livin' in a house t' make it home'
- Poet Laureate of Michigan (1952)
- Hosted a Detroit radio show (1931–1942) and NBC's A Guest in Your House (1951)
02 / Their Detroit places
Their Detroit places 2
Where they lived, worked, performed and liked to hang out. Closed and demolished places stay here too, because they are part of the city's history.
Worked here · 1925–1959
Detroit Free Press Building
Closed · 1925–1998
The Free Press headquarters from 1925, where Guest wrote his column for his last three decades; the paper left in 1998 and the building reopened as The Press/321 in 2020.
Buried here · 1959
Woodlawn Cemetery
The Woodward Avenue cemetery where he was buried in 1959.