"YOUNG POETS WRITE WHAT THEY KNOW": WILLIAM REED DUNROY, POET OF THE PLAINS

In a column for the "Lincoln" [Nebraska] "Courier", a newspaper that actively covered the city's political and artistic scenes in the mid-1890s, William Reed Dunroy writes, "Young poets write what they know; what life has taught them." If his own poetry and imaginative prose are any indication, what Dunroy himself knew best, and cared about most deeply, is the Great Plains region--its weather, landscape, and the lives of its people. Dunroy's career as a poet and a reporter began in Nebraska, and his work is most remarkable when he is writing about the place he loved. Dunroy has not been overlooked by those investigating or cataloging writers from Nebraska or the Great Plains, but little indepth study of his work has been undertaken.