Life
Ford was born on a farm in Eva, Alabama. According to one source, he was named after the doctor who delivered him; according to another, the doctor suggested the name to Ford's mother, who thought it would "in a wistful sort of way tie the two families together". In 1939 his family moved to near Avoca, Arkansas, where his father had a chicken farm. Edsel attended high school in Rogers. He began writing early and published his first poem in the Kansas City Star at the age of 14. In 1948 he won an Arkansas Poets' Roundtable Award and matriculated at the University of Arkansas. After receiving a degree in journalism in 1952, he was drafted and served in the Army in Hanau, Germany. During his service he refused officer training because he felt that no one should have that kind of authority over others. He also continued writing (contributing so many poems to the "Pup Tent Poets" column of Stars and Stripes that a reader wrote, "I am getting bored/ with the works of Edsel Ford").
After his enlistment ended, he worked for a few years in Texas and in Hobbs, New Mexico as a clerk for Phillips Petroleum. In February, 1957, he became a full-time writer, and a year later went back to his family's farm as writing was not producing enough income for him to live independently. His poems appeared in a wide variety of publications, among the best-known of which were the Saturday Review, the New York Times, the Christian Science Monitor, Ladies' Home Journal, and McCall's. He also reviewed books for the Tulsa World and wrote a column, "The Golden Country", for the Ozarks Mountaineer.
In 1961 he met the artist Hank Spruce, who soon became his close friend and patron. Beginning in 1962 they shared a house in Fort Smith, Arkansas.
Ford died of a brain tumor at the age of 41.
Read more about this topic: Edsel Ford (poet)
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