The poet, though seeing every seam,
Loves the world as no other being —
Feeling beauty rather than seeing.
— Cave Outlaw
I came across an old poetry book in a secondhand shop by an author named Cave Outlaw and loved his poems. So I went home and bought three of his other books online — would’ve bought the fifth but couldn’t find a copy. When looking up information about him, couldn’t find even a speck. I nearly gave up but after digging really deep, visiting a couple of libraries, and following dozens of little clue-trails I was finally able to find several flecks of biographical gold and piece together this fact sheet. —tg
Full Name: Cave Augustus Outlaw. All his books are published as Cave Outlaw. There are other references to him as Cave A. Outlaw.
Pseudonym or Real Name? real name
Born: 1900 November 1, near Dover, Tennessee
Raised: LaFayette, Kentucky, on family farm
Grandfather: Cave J. Outlaw (1852–1884), Tennessee
Father: William Watford Outlaw (1872–1947), Kentucky farmer, born Tennessee, known as W. W. Outlaw
Mother: Hattie Lee Norfleet Outlaw (1872–1948), born Tennessee, died California, buried Kentucky
Sister: Edyth E. Outlaw Hancock (1898–1975), born Tennessee, died Kentucky
Marital Status: married in 1930s–40s to Ingrid M. Josephson, stenographer, born California, c.1912; possibly had one wife before that and possibly another wife after Ingrid, but still researching
Children: none that I can determine
Education: Southwestern University at Clarksville, Tennessee, class of 1922, and Bowling Green Business College, Kentucky
Later Residences: moved to California in mid-1920s, lived in San Francisco, Sacramento, Santa Rosa, Mill Valley, San Bernardino, Apple Valley, and Hemet, also Tucson, Arizona
Vocations and Avocations: corporate executive (1920s–30s) in California, budget analyst for Pacific Division of Office of War Information (WW II), accountant, poet, rancher (1940s+), real estate broker (1940s–1965), breeding and showing Arabian horses (1960s+), treasurer of Tucson branch Club Circuit Poetry Society of the Arizona State Poetry Society (1976+)
Books Published:
Each Day, 1942, privately printed, San Francisco
Fugitive Hour, 1950, Exposition Press, New York
Autumn Walk, 1974, Exposition Press, New York
Light Is My Tread, 1979, Owl Press, California
Wind in the Bell Tower, 1980, Under The Sun Press, Tucson
Died: 1996 November 14, Hemet, California
Quotations:
Often, it has seemed, I have lost myself in the stream of living, to find it again with glad welcome on some lonely bank near a patch of desolation.
—Cave Outlaw (1900–1996)
And do not forget the spaces. When earth’s
Heaviness pulls hard, turn to the spaces.
Their breezes will brace us—and we shall know.
—Cave Outlaw, Fugitive Hour, 1950
Source: Autumn Walk, 1974
Sources: Each Day, Fugitive Hour, Autumn Walk, The Kentucky New Era, HeritageQuest, Find a Grave, Phoenix Public Library, Google Books, U.S. Census, Ancestry.com, Southwestern Today, Tucson Daily Citizen, WorldCat, University of Southern California Libraries, U.S. Federal Trade Commission, Google Search
published Oct 2022
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amended Oct 2023
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