Milkweed Ladies (12 page)

LOUISE MCNEILL was born in West Virginia
in 1911 on the farm where her family has lived since 1769. Her first major collection of poems,
Gauley Mountain
, was published by Harcourt Brace in 1939 with a foreword by Stephen Vincent Benet. She is the author of four other collections of poems, including
Paradox Hill
(1972) and
Elderberry Flood
(1979). Ms. McNeill's poetry has been published in
The Atlantic Monthly, Harper's, Poetry, The Saturday Review
, and many other magazines and anthologies. She has also published fiction in
The Farm Journal
, and essays in
Northwest Review
and
Appalachian Heritage
. Ms. McNeill taught for thirty-five years until her retirement in 1972.

Among Ms. McNeill's honors are the Atlantic Monthly Poetry Prize and the annual book award of the West Virginia Library Association. She has been Poet Laureate of West Virginia since 1977 and
in 1985 was named West Virginian of the year. In 1988 she received the Appalachian Gold Medallion from the University of Charleston, West Virginia. She and her husband, Roger Pease, live with their son, Douglas and his wife Rae, in South Windsor, Connecticut.