Mike Mapes grew up thinking everyoneâs dad wrote poetry.
âIt seemed natural to me. Thatâs what dads did,â he said when he and his siblings gathered in February for a video about their father â Arthur Franklin Mapes â author of Indianaâs state poem.
Arthur Franklin Mapes wrote âIndianaâ while sitting at the kitchen table . he would get something in his head and he would jot it right down, his children recalled, in various ways.
A machinist at Flint and Walling in Kendallville by day and a dad, nature enthusiast and poet at all other times â thatâs how his children remember him. During the day âheâd think about nature and the great outdoors and heâd come home with thoughts in his head, grab anything, a napkin or whatever, and heâd start writing out his poems .â