Ann Darr (1920-2007), a prominent poet and pilot during World War II, was born in Bagley, Iowa. After graduating from the University of Iowa in 1941, she moved to New York as a writer and broadcaster for “The Women of Tomorrow” on NBC radio. Darr was one of only 1,074 female aviators chosen to be Women Airforce Service Pilots, or WASPs, during the Second World War. She was stationed in Sweetwater, Texas, where she flew aircraft in simulations receiving repairs. The work was dangerous; 38 WASPs died during the program, often due to flying planes in poor condition and in dangerous weather.
After the war ended, Darr moved to Maryland with her husband. Over the next several decades, she wrote ten books and chapbooks of poetry, including: The Myth of a Woman’s Fist (1973), Cleared For Landing (1978), Riding with the Fireworks (1981), Confessions of a Skewed Romantic (1993), and Flying the Zuni Mountains (1994). Many of her poems honored the lives of Darr’s fellow WASPs, and told the stories of their heroic, and sometimes deadly work. Darr taught creative writing at American University and at the Writer’s Center in Bethesda, Maryland. She passed away of Alzheimer’s disease and was buried as a veteran in 2007.
