UMarmot » Poetry

Lenson, Michael, 1903-1971

rscox — Mon, 30 Jul 2012 17:13:53 +0000

Born in Russia in 1903, the realist painter Michael Lenson emigrated to the United States at the age of eight, and from early in life, took an interest in art. While a student at the National Academy of Design in 1928, Lenson was awarded the Chaloner Paris Prize, enabling him to spend four years of study in Europe and leading to his first three one man shows. With the Great Depression in full effect upon his return to America, he accepted a position as director of mural projects for the Works Progress Administration in New Jersey, through which he built a reputation as one of the most important muralists in the eastern states. Exhibited widely, he was productive as both an artist and critic until his death in 1971. His works are included in the collections of the RISD Museum, the Maier Museum of Art, the Johnson Museum of Art, the Newark Museum, the Montclair Art Museum, and the Wolfsonian Collection, among others.

Consisting of pencil portraits of poets, each approximately 12 x 18″, the Lenson Collection contains twelve late works by Michael Lenson that were included in an exhibition held at the Montclair Art Museum in 1970. The subjects of the portraits include William Blake, Robert Browning, George Gordon Lord Byron, Robert Burns, Geoffrey Chaucer, John Donne, T.S. Eliot, John Keats, John Milton, Sean O’Casey, Alexander Pope, and Percy Bysshe Shelley.

Yeats, W. B. (William Butler), 1865-1939

rscox — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 11:34:57 +0000

One the great poets of Ireland, W.B. Yeats was a key figure in the Celtic literary revival of the early twentieth century. Born into an artistic family in Dublin in 1865, Yeats was heavily influenced early in his career by Irish folk literature and Theosophical mysticism, but he was simultaneously rooted in the political issues of the day. An Irish nationalist by inclination, he became a two-term Senator in the Irish Free State and he was a key supporter of the arts and theatre in the new nation. His international reputation was cemented when he received the Nobel Prize for literature in 1923. Yeats died in 1939 at the age of 73.

The Alspach collection consists of hundreds of works by and about W.B. Yeats, collected by Yeats scholar Russell K. Alspach, a member of the UMass English faculty. An extensive assemblage with first editions of most of the key works, the collection also includes critical works on Yeats, works by his literary peers, bibliographies, and items published by the Cuala Press, a private press operated by Yeats’s sister Elizabeth that was a strong influence in the Celtic revival. A few items have been added to the collection since its acquisition in 1971.

WFCR (Radio station : Amherst, Mass.)

rscox — Tue, 01 May 2012 17:09:47 +0000

The first public radio station in western New England, WFCR Five College Radio has provided a mix of high quality, locally-produced and nationally syndicated programming since May 1961. In 2012, the station reached over 175,000 listeners per week, with a mix of classical and jazz music, news, and entertainment.

The WFCR Collection contains nearly 4,500 reel to reel recordings of locally-produced radio programs, reflecting over fifty years of the cultural and intellectual life of western Massachusetts. Drawing upon the talents of the faculty and students of the Five Colleges (Amherst, Hampshire, Mount Holyoke, and Smith Colleges and UMass Amherst), the collection offers a remarkable breadth of content, ranging from public affairs to community and national news, cultural programming, children’s programming, news and current events, scholarly lectures, classical music, and jazz.

Halley, Anne

dkovacs — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 19:29:42 +0000

Writer, editor, and educator, Anne Halley was born in Bremerhaven, Germany in 1928. A child during the Holocaust, she relocated with her family to Olean, New York during the late 1930s so that her father, who was Jewish, could resume his practice of medicine. Graduating from Wellesley and the University of Minnesota, Halley married a fellow writer and educator, Jules Chametzky, in 1958. Together they raised three sons in Amherst, Massachusetts where Chametzky was a professor of English at UMass and Halley taught and wrote. It was during the late 1960s through the 1970s that she produced the first two of her three published collections of poetry. The last was published in 2003 the year before she died from complications of multiple myeloma at the age of 75.

Drafts of published and unpublished short stories and poems comprise the bulk of this collection. Letters to and from Halley, in particular those that depict her education at Wellesley and her professional life during the 1960s-1980s, make up another significant portion of her papers. Publisher’s correspondence and a draft of Halley’s afterward document the Chametzkys effort to release a new edition of Mary Doyle Curran’s book, The Parish and the Hill, for which Halley and Chametzky oversaw the literary rights. Photographs of Halley’s childhood in Germany and New York as well as later photographs that illustrate the growth of her own family in Minnesota and Massachusetts offer a visual representation of her remarkable professional and pesonal life.

Agha, Shahid Ali, 1949-

rscox — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 20:46:02 +0000

A poet and translator of Kashmiri descent, Agha Shahid was raised in a household where poetry was recited in Persian, Urdu, Hindi, and English. Born in New Delhi on February 4, 1949, he was educated at the University of Kashmir, Srinagar, and University of Delhi, earning earned a doctorate in English from Pennsylvania State University in 1984 and an MFA from the University of Arizona in 1985. The author of nine volumes of poetry, and widely anthologized, Ali was on faculty in the MFA Program at University of Massachusetts Amherst, when he died of brain cancer in December, 2001.

This small collection contains copies of Ali’s first two books, Bone-Sculpture (1972) and In Memory of Begum Akhtar (1979), a self-produced chapbook, and a rough manuscript of poems. All are inscribed to his colleague and friend Zabelle Stodola.

Patterson, Charles H.

rscox — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 19:28:57 +0000

For many years, Charles H. Patterson served as head of the Department of Language and Literature at Massachusetts Agricultural College. Born in Smithsonville, Ont., in 1863, Patterson received both a BA (1887) and MA (1893) from Tufts University before launching his teaching career. He joined the faculty at MAC as an assistant professor of English, in 1916, after 13 years at West Virginia University. A former professional actor, he taught courses in modern literature, with a particular interest in drama, and served as department chair for nearly a decade before his sudden death in 1933.

The Patterson Papers contain a small selection of correspondence and notes on English composition and literature as taught at Massachusetts Agricultural College. Most noteworthy, perhaps, is a draft of Patterson’s unpublished book, The Amazing Boucicault.

Historical Note

For many years, Charles H. Patterson served as head of the Department of Language and Literature at Massachusetts Agricultural College. Born in Smithsonville, Ont., in 1863, Patterson received both a BA (1887) and MA (1893) from Tufts University before launching his teaching career. In 1916, after 13 years at West Virginia University, he joined the faculty at MAC as a as assistant professor of English, eventually becoming department chair. A former professional actor, he taught courses in modern literature, with a particular interest in drama.

A stern, but popular instructor, throughout his time in Amherst, Patterson remained active in community affairs, notably with the Unity church and the Pacific lodge of Masons, but also taking part in groups ranging from the George Washington bicentennial committee to the Amherst motion picture censorship committee. He died suddenly on Aug. 12, 1933, while vacationing at his summer home in Southport, Me. At the time of his death he was working on a biography of the Irish playwright Dion Boucicault.

Scope and Contents of the Collection

Information on Use

Terms of Access and Use

Restrictions on access:

The collection is open for research.

Preferred Citation

Cite as: Charles H. Patterson Papers (FS 089). Special Collections and University Archives, W.E.B. Du Bois Library, University of Massachusetts Amherst.

History of the Collection

Source of acquisition unidentified.

Processing Information

Processed by Dex Haven, February 2009.

Additional Information

Language

English

Contents List

Biographical

1919-1933

Box 1:1

Byron, George Gordon. Notes

Undated

Box 1:1

Correspondence

1920-1924

Box 1:1

English: class assignments and exams

ca.1925-1931

Box 1:1

English Department (MAC)

Undated

Box 1:1

English teaching

Undated

Box 1:1

Newsclippings

1921-1930

Box 1:1

Newsclippings: novelists and short story writers

Undated

Box 1:1

Newsclippings: poetry and writing

Undated

Box 1:1

Newsclippings: theatre and drama

1923-1929

Box 1:1

Notes: Drama

Undated

Box 1:1

Notes: research and teaching

Undated

4 folders

Box 1:1

Poetry	Undated		Box 1:1
Transcripts of 19th century French poetry.

Student exams

1929-1932

Box 1:1

Suggested books for college students

Undated

Box 1:1

The Amazing Boucicault [manuscript]	ca.1932	4 folders	Box 2:1
Unpublished book-length manuscript on Dion Boucicault and his plays.

Boucicault, Dion. Appendices and notes

ca.1932

Box 2:1

Pamphlets and printed matter	1899-1931	2 folders	Box 2:1
Miscellaneous pamphlets and advertising material on education, literature, and language.

Junkins, Donald

rscox — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 14:15:44 +0000

A poet, expert on the works of Hemingway, Robert Francis, and D.H. Lawrence, and a 1953 graduate of the University, Donald Junkins directed the Master of Fine Arts in English program from 1966. Junkins juggled his career as a poet with his work at the University, focusing his teaching energy on literature, not creative writing, to save his creative resources. Before turning his energies to poetry, Junkins studied theology at Boston University School of Theology. While a student, Junkins met poet Robert Francis, took courses with Robert Lowell and, discovering his love of poetry through these contacts, Junkins life path was forever changed. After leaving Boston University, Junkins taught creative writing at Chico State University before coming to the University.

The Donald Junkins Papers document some of his creative output while at the University through a collection of literary journals containing his poetry, drafts of poems, published and unpublished with notes and galley proofs of his poetry collection And Sandpipers She Said, published by The University of Massachusetts Press in 1970. Two mimeographed publications of student poems represent his teaching work at Chico State University.

Abramson, Doris E.

rscox — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 17:23:03 +0000

After earning her masters degree from Smith College in 1951, Doris Abramson (class of 1949) returned to UMass in 1953 to become instructor in the English Department, remaining at her alma mater through a long and productive career. An historian of theatre and poet, she was a founding member of the Speech Department, Theatre Department, and the Massachusetts Review. In 1959, a Danforth grant helped Abramson pursue doctoral work at Columbia. Published in 1969, her dissertation, Negro Playwrights in the American Theatre, 1925-1969, was a pioneering work in the field. After her retirement, she and her partner of more than 40 years, Dorothy Johnson, ran the Common Reader Bookshop in New Salem.

An extensive collection covering her entire career, Abramson’s papers are a valuable record of the performing arts at UMass, her research on African American playwrights, her teaching and directing, and many other topics relating to her diverse interests in literature and the arts.

Aczel, Tamas

scua — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 00:00:45 +0000

Born on Dec. 1, 1921, to a middle class family, Tamas Aczel became affiliated with leftist politics in Hungary prior to the Second World War, joining the Party after. With degrees in literature from Peter Pazmany University (BA 1948) and Eotvos Lorent University (MA 1950), Aczel quickly established a reputation as a literary talent, publishing seven novels and winning the Kossuth Prize (1949) and Stalin Prize for Literature (1952). During this period, he became disenchanted with the Communist government and during the short-lived rebellion in 1956, he served as press secretary for Prime Minister Imre Nagy. When Nagy was deposed, Aczel escaped through Yugoslavia to Austria and then England. In 1966, he was invited to teach modern European literature at UMass, where he became Director of the MFA program (1978-1982). Aczel died in 1994, leaving his wife Olga A. Gyarmaty (an Olympic gold medalist in the long jump, 1948) and son Thomas.

The Aczel collection consists primarily of numerous drafts of several novels, including The Hunt (1990), Illuminations (1981), and Ice Age (1965), along with other writing, translations, some student essays, and autobiographical material. Some material is in Hungarian.

Alspach, Russell K. (Russell King), 1901-

rscox — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 10:00:50 +0000

Russel K. Alspach earned his PhD in 1932 from the University of Pennsylvania where he taught English from 1924-1942. After four years of service in the U.S. Navy during World War II, he spent eighteen years as head of the Department of English at West Point Military Academy before retiring in 1965 with the rank of Brigadier General. A specialist in Irish literature with wide ranging interests running from William Butler Yeats to Percy Blythe Shelley and William Faulkner, Alspach published prolifically throughout his career. He took a post-retirement appointment at UMass in 1966, but hardly retired, eventually becoming Head of the Department of English, and teaching until his final retirement and death in 1980.

The Alspach Papers consist of professional correspondence, drafts of writing, and reviews written by Russell K. Alspach. The small collection includes grant applications and notes for Alspach’s Yeats Study Series, as well as a 3.75 inch monographic recording of readings and music by unidentified artists. The Department of Special Collections and University Archives is also home to the Alspach Yeats Collection of rare books.