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The Petals of a Kansas Sunflower features the poetry of Marie Harder Epp, a village poet from a Kansas Mennonite community. Her son, Melvin D. Epp, translated her works from German to English for this volume. He presents the poetry within her engaging personal story as well as the larger Anabaptist historical context.

"Epp weaves a fascinating montage of stories, photos, and personal reminiscences that frame the collected poems of his mother, a remarkable and strong woman who, as a farm wife on the Kansas prairies, reared eight children and still found time to reflect on the rugged beauty and the people who surrounded her. Her poetry gives 'a face and a heart' to the times, the community, and the land both she and Melvin loved so evidently."
—John Yoder, Visiting Professor of Education and Leadership, Eastern Mennonite University

"Marie Harder Epp experienced almost all of the twentieth century from the same Kansas farmhouse where she was born. Her amazing bilingual poetry harnesses a strong, sturdy prairie voice that transports the reader into a female realm of family, farming, weddings, births, and funerals that marked the meaning of her days and of ours. Melvin Epp has translated and wrapped her poems in the context and relationships that illuminated her words and her rural world."
—Mark Jantzen, Professor of History, Bethel College