Wilma_Elizabeth_McDaniel
Wilma Elizabeth McDaniel
American poet
Wilma Elizabeth McDaniel (December 22, 1918 – April 13, 2007) was a long-time resident of California's Central Valley. Wilma was one of thousands who emigrated from Oklahoma to California during the Dust Bowl years of the mid-1930s. Named the Tulare County poet laureate[1] in the 1970s, McDaniel was dubbed "The Okie Poet"[2] because of her writings about Oklahoma throughout her lifetime.
McDaniel published more than fifty books of poetry and was the subject of a film documentary by Chris Simon, Down an Old Road: The Poetic Life of Wilma Elizabeth McDaniel.