RANGELEY — Local storyteller Jeep Wilcox will sign his new book, “Favorite Story-poems of Maine’s Unique Storyteller Gaylon ‘Jeep’ Wilcox, the Woodland Bard,” from 1 to 2:30 p.m. on Saturday, Dec. 22 at Ecopelagicon, 7 Pond St.
The book of story-poems has long been a dream of Wilcox’s, and, in the 1980s, he talked about this dream with folklorist Margaret Yocom, who is the editor of the book and will also be at the launch-day signing.
Designed by Höhne-Werner Designs of Wilton, the 170-page book has 36 poems and 43 accompanying images, including photographs and drawings. Poems in the book include “Children’s Day Parade,” “The Eighth Day,” “The Mad Whittler,” “A Real Native: The Boot From L.L. Bean” and “You Can’t Get There From Here, But You Can Get Here From There.”
Wilcox grew up on a farm, the seventh of 12 children, and went to first through fifth grades in a one-room schoolhouse. He started creating story-poems at a very young age; the big woods of the Rangeley Lakes Region were his major inspiration. By age 10, he was roaming the region’s mountains and valleys, leaving story-poems on trees by the waysides, using a pen, pencil or jackknife.
He has appeared at the Maine Folk Festival; the Lowell, Mass., Folk Festival; the National Folk Festival in Bangor; the Northwest Folk Festival in Seattle, Wash.; as well as at schools and civic organizations. He has been featured in documentaries, exhibits, and articles, and over the years he has shared his stories with over 500 tour bus audiences at the Rangeley Inn.
Wilcox has worked as a logger, truck driver, and as custodian at Rangeley Lakes Regional School. From 1952 to 1956, during the Korean War era, he served in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Yocom came to Rangeley to work with the Rodney Richard family and the Logging Museum they founded, along with others. In 2014, after she moved to Maine full time, she and Wilcox started working on the book in earnest.
