Bonnie Elizabeth Parker Biography

Famous as Bonnie & Clyde,

Bonnie wrote ten poems into a bank book (The First National Bank Of Burkburnett Texas) during her two month stay in the Kaufman County Jail in 1932. Some of these ten poems are her own compositions, while others are the poems of other poets. The ten poems in the order Bonnie chose to write them are:

1. The Story Of Suicide Sal (Bonnie's Poem, her famous alter ego as a gangster gal)
2. The Prostitutes Convention (Bonnie's Poem, set in her Olive St Dallas neighborhood)
3. The Fate Of Tiger Rose (Bonnie's Poem, imagining her alter ego as an underworld moll)
4. I'll Stay (Religious style wedding or loyalty vow, perhaps Bonnie's poem or perhaps a poem by another author whose theme of loyalty Bonnie loved)
5. From Shadow - Sun (poem by Agnes L. Pratt, religious style life philosophy)
6. Bravery (Bonnie's Poem, telling us Bonnie was aware Roy was dabbling in crime)
7. The Hobo's Last Ride (poem credited to A. L. Kirby, liberally scattered with railroad technical terms of the era. Bonnie didn't understand the meaning of 'waste' so substituted it with 'coal')
8. The Girl With The Blue Velvet Band (poet unknown, possibly a convict, San Francisco circa 1900)
9. When! ! (poet unknown, humorous doggerel about a wandering husband)
10. People Will Talk (poem by Mary E. Harris)

Taken together, this collection of poems which Bonnie selected and the order in which she selected them, give an insight into Bonnie's mind. Bonnie is also credited with writing four other known poems:

1. The Street Girl (credited to Bonnie and possibly Bonnie's autobiographical poem of her life before Clyde, but also quite possibly a 'moral danger' poem by another author, the street girl subject of which Bonnie came to identify with, perhaps influenced by Stephen Crane's 1893 novel ''Maggie, A Girl Of The Streets) . Type written on both sides of one page (strange as Bonnie is not known to have had a typewriter and is unlikely to have bothered typing her poems, preferring pencil and paper, perhaps this was a handout to students at Cement City High?) and signed by Bonnie with both her signature 'Bonnie Parker' and her alias signature 'Bonnie Jean' (but these signatures were just practice signatures on a blank side of the folded up page) . Billie Jean saved this page as a cherished memento of Bonnie.

2. The Outlaws (believed to be Bonnie's Poem written while on the run with Clyde, about an imaginary encounter between Clyde and 'Billy The Kid') . A book about 'Billy The Kid' was found in their death car when they were killed. It is also possible that this poem was written by another author in contemporaneous style, because the poem is a somewhat negative lament towards Clyde, while Bonnie is known to have avoided being negative towards Clyde, although the poem does accurately say what Bonnie privately felt inside.

3. The Trail's End (Bonnie's famous autobiographical poem of Bonnie & Clyde) .
Hand written by Bonnie on pages of a green bound 1933 diary which were then torn out and given to her mother Emma Parker on their last meeting on 6th May 1934. There is another hand written copy of the poem on the pages inside this same diary along with a poem in reply written by Clyde.

4. The Prisoner (Bonnie's last poem, she expected capture similar to Blanche)
Hand written by Bonnie in the same green bound 1933 diary as 3. The Trails End, above. While writing the last stanza of this poem Bonnie breaks down with sad emotion, her writing turning to scrawl as she wrote....'many be the innocent victims, and their sorrows are not few, who have sacrificed their freedom, for a crime they didn't do'.

Bonnie scribbled a profuse amount of verse on scraps of paper while on the run with Clyde, to pass the time. Most of these scraps of paper she then crumpled up and threw away.

Bonnie and Clyde went down together at 9: 15 am on 23 May 1934 riding side by side, as they were shot and killed in ambush by six officers of the law, on the road between Mt Lebanon and Sailes, just out of Gibsland, in Bienville Parish Louisiana, after being betrayed by Ivy Methvin, father of their current co-riding gang member Henry Methvin, who informed his local Sheriff, Henderson Jordan, of the place and time of his next secret meeting with Bonnie and Clyde, in exchange for a Texas pardon for Henry's crimes that had already been arranged by former Texas Ranger Captain, Frank Hamer, subject to the Methvins' assisting in the successful capture of Bonnie and Clyde.

All of the above poems are presented here, some with commentary.

Also presented is a poetic Eulogy to Bonnie.

The story of Bonnie and Clyde is the story of a boy who had decided to live a life of crime, subsequently vowing to never be caught again following his first prison stint, which through thus inevitable consequent events led to him being destined for the electric chair if ever caught. Knowing this, he fought a desperate fight to live, a fight in which he outmatched officers of the law, who found themselves unable to apprehend him with the resources they had available, in the vast rural areas and small towns through which he drove and hid, stole and robbed, with some officers who confronted him, not realizing the abjectly desperate person they were confronting, unfortunately dying in Clyde's desperate battle against inevitable death. Into Clyde's world stepped Bonnie, a beautiful short slender 'doll like' girl, well educated, witty and fun, with raging hormones of youth, looking for adventure, abjectly depressed and sick of the relentless grind of the poverty of her life, she finally found her adventure with Clyde. Bonnie developed a love for Clyde (actually an increasing codependence that increasingly distracted her mind from her abject depression) and when Bonnie loved she loved! And for those she loved her loyalty knew no bounds, she would die for them. Together, Clyde and Bonnie outraged the public with their trail of mayhem, newspapers vying to publish any bit of news about them, knowing sales of their paper would spike. Their escapades, together with their epic published photographs that had been captured by officers of the law, along with their long time on the run and spectacular demise, all chronicled along the way by numerous newspaper writeups, made them legends in their own time. The gripping story of a girl whose love and loyalty for a boy was so great that she went to death with him, and of that boy who fought his world, always found a way to succeed and never gave up, makes them legends of all time. We would all love a Bonnie and we would all love a Clyde, just without the crime. Bonnie too, suppressed the crime in her mind and lived out her adventure, as if some sort of play, in the 'magic garden' of life.

Bonnie's Epitaph as it appears on her grave:

As The Flowers Are All Made Sweeter By
The Sunshine And The Dew, So This Old
World Is Made Brighter By The Lives
Of Folks Like You.