BiographyThe state’s poet laureate position dates back to 1942, when Governor Sam H. Jones named Emma Wilson Emery of Shreveport to serve. Though a longtime North Louisiana resident, Emery was born in East Texas, in 1885. Her parents hailed from Spurger, a pine timber town founded by her great-grandfather near the Neches River. Her father’s family didn’t cotton that his beloved’s bloodline ran with Cherokee stock, so David Henry Wilson and Eula Gilmore eloped in exile. Infant Emma was born in a covered wagon, she later liked to point out, “moving across the plains of Texas.”
