Nancy Byrd Turner (1880– ), an American poet and writer of children's verse. Public information about her life is limited; the library holds only one of her works, Zodiac Town. Judging from surviving works and common records, she wrote mainly for young readers, and her poems and rhymes appeared frequently in children's magazines and poetry anthologies. Her verse is light in subject, plain and lucid in language, and brisk in rhythm, making it well suited to recitation and memorization. Her name is often associated with the tradition of early twentieth-century American children's poetry, and her pieces were repeatedly included by anthologists, retaining a measure of circulation in children's literature and verse collections. Because biographical sources are scarce, the details of her life are difficult to set out, and readers come to know her writing chiefly through works such as Zodiac Town.
