Edwin Ford Piper (February 8, 1871 – May 17, 1939) was an American poet, instructor, and collector of folk songs.

[1] He learned how to play songs from his mother Lucinda, his sister Ella, the performers who appeared at the county literary society, hired men, cowboys, and homeless people.

[3] Sharon Osborne Brown said in Poetry of Our Times that Piper's "two books, Barbed Wire and Wayfarers (1924) and Paintrock Road (1927), are important items in the growing literature of the west".

[4] The Des Moines Register wrote, "Edwin Ford Piper is a literary relative of Robert Frost, of Vachel Lindsay and of Carl Sandburg but not closely related to any of them.

Most of Piper's collected songs came from Iowa and Nebraska, but they also come from other states such as Texas and Arkansas.