Mary Esma Williams was born in Holden, Missouri, on January 26, 1882. She moved to Osawatomie, Kansas, at seven years old. She graduated from Osawatomie High School a valedictorian, and graduated from what is now called the University of Kansas with a mathematics degree in 1905. She married Merle Ward in 1908 in the Congregational Church built by John Brown, John Brown's niece was their organist. The couple settled in Belpre, Kansas, when her husband and his brother formed a grain company and purchased a grain elevator in that town. It was while living there that May Williams Ward began publishing her poetry, with a poem called “Youth Wants Summer” that was published in Life magazine in 1921. She published Seesaw and Double Rhythm, her first two books, in 1929. In 1933 the Wards moved to Wellington, Kansas, where they lived the rest of their lives. In 1937 Ward won the Poetry Society of American Award for "Dust Bowl," a group of poems that were published in the New York Times. May Williams Ward published five more books during her years in Wellington: From Christmas-Time to April (winner of the Kaleidograph book publication contest, 1938), Approach to Social Studies Through Choral Speaking (1945), Wheatlands (1954), No Two Years Alike (1960), and In That Day (1969).

*Biographical information obtained from Wichita State University’s biography of May Williams Ward. Search their site for complete bio.
http://specialcollections.wichita.edu/

Seesaw (1929)
Double Rhythm (1929)
From Christmas-Time to April (1938)
Approach to Social Studies Through Choral Speaking (1945)
Wheatlands (1954)
No Two Years Alike (Triangle Publishing Company, 1960)
In That Day (The University Press of Kansas, 1969) 

Writer (from In That Day, 1969)

While bitter seeds scatter from the ruptured pod Earth
As wind words are a-mutter: death and death and death

While other too-ripe planets fall apart in rot
And spilled juice of comets spurts out hot

When lightnings roll tide-like west to east and back
And time’s wheel slipping sidewise jars the cosmic clock—

Someone will cling with one hand to a fragment bound for hell
While the other hand scrawls shorthand, reporting on it all.

A writer in his element, this “beat” his final glory:
His the one first-hand account of the great, the ultimate story.

And every island fled away
and the mountains were not found
nor were the rivers found;

the cities and the wheat-white plains
were swallowed underground
and the void sucked in the ground;

the oceans turned to flying mist
and vanished without sound
after that first great sound

and the race of men went with the rest
as Jahweh willed it should.
It was fitting that it should.

There was a nothingness of dark
where once the planets stood,
where once they sloped and stood,

and God looked on His handiwork
and saw that it was good—
the clean clear space was good.

Blue Skyways, a service of the Kansas State Library, has links to 28 poems by May Williams Ward.
http://skyways.lib.ks.us/poetry/seesaw/index.html

Wichita State University holds a collection of May Williams Ward’s diaries, correspondence, literary and art works, memorabilia, photographs, scrapbooks, and financial documents.
http://specialcollections.wichita.edu/collections/ms/74-18/74-18-A.HTML

The Kenneth Spencer Library in Lawrence holds a May Williams Ward Collection that includes poetry manuscripts and correspondence.
http://ead.diglib.ku.edu/xml/ksrl.kc.wardmpoetmanus.html
They also hold poetry workbooks and scrapbooks made by May Williams Ward.
http://ead.diglib.ku.edu/xml/ksrl.kc.wardmpoetwork.html

The Center for Kansas studies Historical Bibliography site lists some of May Williams Ward’s published books and has a short bio.
http://www.washburn.edu/reference/cks/lists/historicalbib.html