Edmund Vance Cooke, is possibly one of the most underrated poets of all time. Cooke was born in 1866, on June 5th, in Port Denver, Ontario, Canada. His first job was at a factory called the White Sewing Machine Company. He stayed at that job for almost fourteen years until , in1893, he became a self-employed poet, writer, and public speaker . His first book of poems, A Patch of Pansies, came out the next year. Four years later, he married Lilith Castleberry; and they had five children. He published at least sixteen books of poetry and numerous children's books, but he is best known for his poem "How Did You Die?"
In 1920, the Detroit news launched its radio station, WWJ.
Cooke was immediately offered a chance to broadcast his poems
live over the radio, to thousands of listeners. With this, he
paved the path for future poet Edgar Guest, who was responsible
for producing nationwide popularity of poetry hours on the radio
in the 1930's. It would be Cooke's last contribution to this world,
he died in Cleveland, Ohio on
December 18th, 1932.