Goodbye to a Scarecrow

Status: Available

Page Count: 84

Edition: First

ISBN: 978-1-59092-660-4

SRP (USD): $11.99

Size: 5.5x8.5 trade paperback

Cover: Blue Artisans

Genre(s): Poetry

Homepage: Wilma Elizabeth McDaniel

Wilma Elizabeth McDaniel was born near Stroud, Oklahoma, during the raging influenza epidemic of 1918. She became "afflicted" with poetry at a young age. As a barefoot child, Wilma scavenged inch-long pencil stubs and discarded calendars to write a few lines of poetry. Her childhood was forged in the extreme conditions of rural poverty, violent weather, and the atmosphere of the Great Depression.

In the ensuing Dust Bowl, Wilma's parents realized their only hope seemed to be joining family members in California's Central Valley, where they were engaged in farming. Wilma arrived in California as a shy seventeen-year old and spent the rest of her life in the Central Valley. She held many 'jobs' during her long lifetime, but poetry was her true vocation.

She's written countless poems about her rural community in California, while never forgetting her Oklahoma roots. She toiled away in relative obscurity for many years, but her talent was eventually recognized and she became Poet Laureate of Tulare County in California. She continued her life-long practice of writing daily, and wrote poems on grocery bags, the backs of envelopes, or any available scrap paper. She saved her poems in a shoe box stashed under her bed.

Her popularity has evolved and endured because her poetry speaks to a wide audience--from university professors and other literati, to the ordinary folk. Goodbye to a Scarecrow collects her last poems with grace and honor.

By This Author

Goodbye to a Scarecrow