now teaches the dramatic literature and senior English courses. She finds her chief recreation outside of the classroom in her music and her poetry, both of them rating in her opinion as “master-joys”. She writes her poetry from the point of view of the child, believing that in this way she secures greater simplicity and freshness of expression. She is the author of two books of child verse—The Little Days, 1917; and Windy Leaf, 1925. In 1930 she contributed a series of sonnets, with the general title “Outside”, to Poetry, Chicago. Her latest book is prose and a work of history: Chloe Dusts Her Mantel: A Pioneer Woman's Idyl, 1935, the story of the life of her pioneer grandmother.
Trilliums
From Windy Leaf, 1924
Of all the springtime flowers.
She follows pussy-willow,
And grows in sheltered bowers;
Beneath old logs, and under trees,
Wherever there is shade.
And every place she shows her face,
A little star is made.
11
GRACE E. HALL
In 1894, Mrs. Grace E. Hall came to Oregon from Illinois and since then has spent much of her leisure time writing verse. For 12 years she was staff poet of the Oregonian. She says of her poetry: “I have written as a means of communicating my thoughts about life in general to those who may be interested as I am in every phase of everyday living. I have not studied poetic forms, but people; not technique, but life.” In addition to the large quantity of her news paper verse, she is the author of two volumes of poetry: Homespun, 1922; and Patchwork, 1924.
Pussywillows
From Patchwork, 1924
A narrow path for two—
When pussywillows in the swale