Fresh Water Pearls

Compiled by Bonnie Risby

Often referred to as the Poet Laureate of Ripley County, the Current River Poet, Poet of the Ozarks, and Poetess of the Hills, Pearl Howerton spent most of her nearly ninety-five years living in and around Doniphan, Missouri. Receiving little formal education, Pearl was a voracious reader steeped in the oral traditions and musical legacy of her forebears. Inspired by the people, events and beauty around her, she overcame this lack of formal education through her acquaintance to literature and songs.

Composing verses her entire life, Pearl was legally blind by the time she created the majority of her poems and relied on relatives and friends to transcribe dozens of stanzas stored in her creative mind. Throughout her life, many of her poems were published in the Prospect News and other regional magazines and journals.

In Fresh Water Pearls, Bonnie Risby — Pearl’s granddaughter — has compiled nearly 150 of her favorite poems, preserving the legacy of the Current River Poet for decades to come.