Wallace Gould
Wallace Gould was an American poet born in Lewiston, Maine, under challenging circumstances, being the child of a prostitute and one of her clients. After his birth, he was adopted by a wealthy family, which provided him with a privileged upbringing but led to a conflicted childhood marked by a strained relationship with his foster parents. Gould's artistic journey began with music, as he learned piano and eventually led an orchestra in a local Music Hall. His literary career took off in the early 20th century, influenced by famed Maine poets like Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. He gained recognition for his poetry, publishing works in respected journals and releasing his first book, *Children of the Sun: Rhapsodies and Poems*, in 1917.
In search of a more vibrant artistic community, Gould relocated to New York's Greenwich Village, immersing himself in the bohemian lifestyle. His later years were marked by personal struggles, including a complicated marriage and financial difficulties, as he relied on friends for support while selling homemade goods. Despite his early promise and literary contributions, Gould's writing career dwindled after 1928, and he became known as an eccentric recluse. He passed away in 1940 while chopping wood, leaving behind a legacy of poetry that reflects both his Maine roots and the influences of his tumultuous life.
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Wallace Gould
Writer
- Born: March 18, 1882
- Birthplace: Lewiston, Maine
- Died: December 3, 1940
Biography
Wallace Gould was the child of a Lewiston, Maine, prostitute and one of her clients, allegedly the brother of noted Maine author Holman Day. After his birth, he was taken in by a wealthy Lewiston family and given the family name. Spoiled by his foster mother and detested by his foster father, he had an unhappy childhood, which culminated in his suspension from Lewiston High School for smoking and drinking. Gould then moved to Portland, Maine, where he learned to play the piano, but then he returned to Lewiston, where he led an orchestra in the Music Hall.
After his father’s death, Gould moved to Waterville, Maine, in 1902 and played the piano for silent films. He continued his peripatetic life by moving to Madison, Maine. Here he met Marsden Hartley, a writer who eventually persuaded Waldo Frank, editor of Seven Arts, to publish four of Gould’s poems in 1917. That year also saw the publication of Gould’s Children of the Sun: Rhapsodies and Poems, a book that reflected the influence of the poets Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Edwin Arlington Robinson—two fellow Maine writers who had become internationally known. Gould also placed his poems in such outstanding poetry journals as Dial and The Little Review.
Three years later, Gould left Maine for Greenwich Village in New York City, where he continued to write and publish poems and became involved with the bohemian and avant-garde lifestyle. During 1921 and 1922, he lived in Rutherford, New Jersey, with the family of William Carlos Williams, one of America’s best-known poets. He then walked to Washington, D.C., and then continued on foot to Farmville, Virginia, where he found work as a house painter.
Gould published his last poem in a journal in 1922. In 1928, when his Aphrodite, and Other Poems was published, he met Mary Jackson, a local schoolteacher, who looked after him with the aid of some of his friends from Maine. The two were married in 1932. Gould, who was bisexual, purportedly never consummated his marriage to Jackson.
Regarded by the locals as an eccentric recluse, Gould had fifty cats before his marriage, but he chloroformed them all before the wedding. He supported himself with the aid of friends and by selling jellies and candies. He died chopping wood in 1940. Despite his promising literary start, he stopped publishing in 1928, just eleven years after his first poem saw print.