May Williams Ward: Kansas Poet

The name of May Willie.ms Ward is synonymous with the growth of interest in poetry in the State of Kansas, for she has been writing here for thirty years. It has been the privilege of the writer of this thesis to be counted among the friends of Mrs. Ward during the last of these decades, when settings and themes other than Kansa s and its people have appeared frequently in her works She has taken thought of war and the world and evaluation of individuals known or imagined as themes of poetry. Yet in research through the whole body of her work, especially that of the twenties and thirties, the Kansas influence is found not only to be marked, but dominant; and in the last decade, too, it is a fundamental theme on which her whole philosophy is based. Long considered one of the foremost poets of Kansas, Mrs. Ward has gained prominence in the United States and recognition in England. Acceptance has come because of her ability to see the potentialities in everyday circumstances and persons. As a person, M.W.W. is many-sided, with norm.al interests and hobbies, but with perhaps a more than normal understanding of people. She has no children, but in such a poem as \Garden Wedding\ she expresses an emotion many parents have, and the setting might be almost anywhere in America.