Poetry Society of Georgia records Descriptive Summary Repository: Georgia Historical Society Creator: Poetry Society of Georgia. Title: Poetry Society of Georgia records Dates: 1923-1998 Extent: 6.35 cubic feet (12 boxes, 2 volumes) Identification: MS 1215 Biographical/Historical Note The Poetry Society of Georgia was founded in Savannah, Georgia in 1923 by five women: Elfrida DeRenne Barrow, Katherine Hartridge Strong, Lucy Barrow McIntire, Laura Palmer Bell, and Harriet Lawrence Huston. Its membership was comprised of poetry aficionados from not only the Savannah area but also surrounding states. It has held eight monthly meetings each year to discuss well-known poets, as well as the readings and discussion of members original poetry. Guest speakers have been a tradition within the group since the beginning. The poets James Stephens, Carl Sandburg and John Crowe Ransom visited the Poetry Society of Georgia in 1920s. In the 1960s, the Poetry Society of Georgia began participating in the Gilmer Lecture Series in Savannah, inviting Mark Van Doren in 1963 and continuing throughout the 1970s. The Society began the Conrad Aiken Lecture Series in 1974. Annual poetry prizes are also a mainstay of the Poetry Society of Georgia. Poetry is submitted from all over the United States for many of the Poetry Society of Georgia prizes. The Poetry Society of Georgia publishes an annual yearbook, which includes the year s prize poems and some of the best monthly poems read at meetings. Scope and Content Note This collection contains five series. Series 1, Organizational Records (1923-1980), contains reports from both general meetings and executive board meetings from the Society s inception in 1923 until 1976. Information specific to the Poetry Society of Georgia s meetings and membership lists are also in this area, including a collection of reminder cards mailed out to members prior to every meeting. This group also contains both in-coming and out-going correspondence to the Poetry Society and its officers. Correspondence from the poets Conrad Aiken and William Carlos Williams can be found in Box 2, folders 8 and 10. Series 2, Publications and Submissions (1923-1998), consists of poetry collections and poems written by members. Included in this group are three poetry collections published by the Poetry Society of Georgia. The monthly poems (1923-1980) are poems read anonymously at meetings and discussed by the membership. Winning poems would be eligible for the Popular Prize each year. The yearbooks (1923-1998) of the Poetry Society of Georgia contain notes about the past year s meetings and lectures, the year s winning prize poems, activities of members, and lists of both officers and the general membership. The prizes and contests (1966-1976) folders contain information about the annual prizes and contests offered to members. The correspondence folders contain letters to poets around the United States requesting their participation as judges for various prizes. Series 3, Clippings (1922-1991), contains newspaper clippings related to the Poetry Society of Georgia, mainly from the Savannah Morning News and the Savannah Evening Press. Series 4, Poets (1923-1941), contains biographical information and collected poetry of several specific poets. Molly Bernstein, a Poetry Society of Georgia member in the early decades of the organization, set poems written by other Poetry Society members to music and performed them at meetings. These have been arranged by the last name of the poet who wrote the lyrics. Mary Hope Cabaniss was a Savannah artist and writer, as well as a member of the Poetry
Society of Georgia. Along with her poetry, which is divided here by type, she also wrote a manuscript for a book about her experiences with poetry and her Ouija board, called Whirlpool. Series 5, Miscellaneous (1922-1998) contains miscellaneous information about the Poetry Society of Georgia. Various histories of the organization can be found here, as well as the organization s charter and constitution. Folder 11 contains loose material removed from the scrapbook kept by Josie Lee Herrin. This collection also contains two uncataloged books. The first is entitled Echoes. It is a collection of the poetry of Eliza McIntosh Burroughs, a member of the Poetry Society of Georgia for 42 years until her death in 1978 at the age of 95. This collection was compiled by her son Mac H. Burroughs of Miami, Florida and presented to the Poetry Society of Georgia in 1979. The second is a scrapbook collected by member Josie Lee Herrin. It contains the monthly poems from 1934 to 1951. Index Terms American literature--georgia. American poetry--20th century. American poetry--georgia. American poetry--musical Settings. Barrow, Elfrida DeRenne, 1885-1970. Bernstein, Molly, 1894-1969. Cabaniss, Mary Hope, 1882-1941. Duncan, John D., b. 1937. Killorin, Joseph, b. 1926. Poetry competitions. Sieg, Gerald Chan, 1910-2005. Strong, Katherine Hartridge, 1876-1963. Administrative Information Custodial History The records remained with the Poetry Society of Georgia until 1991. Preferred Citation [item identification], Poetry Society of Georgia records, MS 1215, Georgia Historical Society, Savannah, Georgia. Acquisition Information Gift of Poetry Society of Georgia, 1991. Restrictions Access Restrictions Collection is open for research. Publication Rights Copyright has not been assigned to the Georgia Historical Society. All requests for permission to publish or quote from manuscripts must be submitted in writing to the Division of Library and Archives. Permission for publication is given on behalf of the Georgia Historical Society as the owner of the physical items and is not intended to include or imply permission of the copyright holder, which must also be obtained by the researcher.
Sponsorship Encoding funded by a 2012 Documenting Democracy grant from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission. Container List Organizational Records, 1923-1977 1 1, 1923-1924 2, 1925-1926 3, 1927-1928 4, 1929-1931 5, 1932-1933 Executive Board Minutes, 1966-1971 Executive Board Minutes, 1972-1976 2 1 Meetings -- Cards 2 Meetings--Programs Meetings -- 1931 notebook, 1931 4 Meetings--Miscellaneous, 1923-1970 5 Membership Lists, 1923-1924 6 Membership Lists, 1927-1944
7 Membership Lists, 1965-1968 8 Correspondence, 1925-1930 9 Correspondence, 1931-1938 10 Correspondence, 1941-1965 11 Correspondence, General, 1966 12 Correspondence, Killorin, J., 1966 13 Correspondence, 1967 Correspondence, 1968 3 1 Correspondence, 1969 2 Correspondence, 1970 3 Correspondence, 1971 4 Correspondence, 1972-1980 Publications and Submissions, 1929-1998 3 5 Poetry collections -- Anthology of Verse, 1929 Poetry Collections -- Anniversary Book, 1948, 1973 Poetry Collections - Copyright permissions for 50th anniversary book, 1972 3 8 Monthly Poems, 1923 9 Monthly Poems, 1924 10 Monthly Poems, 1925-1929 11 Monthly Poems, 1930-1933 12 Monthly Poems, 1935-1944 4 1 Monthly Poems, 1945-1948
2 Monthly Poems, 1951-1959 3 Monthly Poems, 1960-1964 4 Monthly Poems, 1965-1966 5 Monthly Poems, 1967 6 Monthly Poems, 1968 7 Monthly Poems, Submissions, 1968 8 Monthly Poems, 1969 9 Monthly Poems, Submissions, 1969 This folder contains submissions from January 1969 through March 1969. 10 Monthly Poems, Submissions, 1969 This folder contains submissions from April 1969 through December 1969. 11 Monthly Poems, 1970 5 1 Monthly Poems, Submissions, 1970 This folder contains submissions from January 1970 through April 1970. 2 Monthly Poems, Submissions, 1970 This collection contains submissions from May 1970 through December 1970. 3 Monthly Poems, 1971 This folder contains submissions from January 1971 through March 1971. 4 Monthly Poems, 1971 This file contains poems from April 1971 through December 1971. 5 Monthly Poems, 1972 This folder contains poems from January 1972 through October 1972. 6 Monthly Poems, 1973 7 Monthly Poems, 1974 8 Monthly Poems, 1975-1976 9 Monthly Poems, 1977-1978 10 Monthly Poems, 1979-1980 11 Monthly Poems
6 1 Yearbooks, 1924-1926 2 Yearbooks, 1927-1928 3 Yearbooks, 1929-1930 4 Yearbooks, 1931-1932 5 Yearbooks, 1933-1934 6 Yearbooks, 1935-1936 7 Yearbooks, 1937-1938 8 Yearbooks, 1939-1940 9 Yearbooks, 1941-1942 10 Yearbooks, 1943-1944 11 Yearbooks, 1945-1946 12 Yearbooks, 1947-1948 13 Yearbooks, 1949-1950 14 Yearbooks, 1951-1952 15 Yearbooks, 1953-1954 16 Yearbooks, 1955-1956 17 Yearbooks, 1957-1958 18 Yearbooks, 1959-1960 7 1 Yearbooks, 1961-1962 2 Yearbooks, 1963-1964 3 Yearbooks, 1965-1966 4 Yearbooks, 1967-1968 5 Yearbooks, 1969-1970 6 Yearbooks, 1971-1972 7 Yearbooks, 1973-1974 8 Yearbooks, 1975-1976 9 Yearbooks, 1977-1978
10 Yearbooks, 1979,1981 11 Yearbooks, 1982-1983 12 Yearbooks, 1985-1986 13 Yearbooks, 1987-1988 14 Yearbooks, 1989-1990 15 Yearbooks, 1991-1992 16 Yearbooks, 1995-1996 17 Yearbooks, 1997-1998 8 1 Prizes and Contests - Rules and Lists 2 Prizes and Contests - Correspondence, 1966 3 Prizes and Contests - Poems, 1967 4 Prizes and Contests - Popular Prize, 1967 5 Prizes and Contests - Versatility Prize, 1967 6 Prizes and Contests - Triolet Contest, 1967 7 Prizes and Contests - Quatrain Contest, 1967 8 Prizes and Contests - Correspondence, 1967 9 Prizes and Contests, 1976 10 Prizes and Contests - Miscellaneous Clippings, 1922-1991 8 11 Clippings, 1922-1924 12 Clippings, 1925-1927 13 Clippings, 1928-1930 14 Clippings, 1931-1932
9 1 Clippings, 1933-1935 2 Clippings, 1936-1939 3 Clippings, 1940-1942 4 Clippings, 1943-1948 5 Clippings, 1949-1962 6 Clippings, 1963-1967 7 Clippings, 1968-1970 8 Clippings, 1971 9 Clippings, 1972 10 Clippings, 1973-1974 11 Clippings, 1975-1976 12 Clippings, 1978-1991 13 Clippings - Other poetry societies and misc. poems by members Poets 10 1 Poets - Aiken, Conrad 2 Poets - Edwards, Kate Flourinor 3 Poets - Shuey, Martha Summerfield 4 Poets - Thomson, Eunice 5 Poets - Miscellaneous 6 Bernstein, Molly - Biography 7 Bernstein, Molly - program, 1933 November 14 8 Bernstein, Molly - sheet music, poets Barrow to Latimer 9 Bernstein, Molly - sheet music, poets Malloch to Shelley 10 Bernstein, Molly - sheet music, poets Sieg to Young 11 Bernstein, Molly - sheet music, no author 12 Bernstein, Molly - sheet music, no words
13 Bernstein, Molly - sheet music, no words, attributed to N.A. Hardee 11 1 Cabaniss, Mary - Personal papers and PSG Tribune newspaper clippings 2 Cabaniss, Mary - Poems, lyrical and nature 3 Cabaniss, Mary - People, places, quatrains, religious, social consciousness, sonnets 4 Cabaniss, Mary - Manuscripts, light verse, love, lyrical, nature 5 Cabaniss, Mary - People, places, quatrains, religious, social consciousness 6 Cabaniss, Mary - Prose, miscellaneous 7 Cabaniss, Mary - Whirlpool, Chapters 1-4 8 Cabaniss, Mary - Whirlpool, Chapters 5-9 9 Cabaniss, Mary - Whirlpool, Chapter 10 10 Cabaniss, Mary - Manuscripts, prose 11 Cabaniss, Mary - Manuscripts, prose 12 Cabaniss, Mary - Miscellaneous 13 Cabaniss, Mary - Duplicate poems Miscellaneous Box Fldr 12 1 Miscellaneous - Histories 2 Miscellaneous - Charter, petition and seal, 1923 3 Miscellaneous - Pamphlets 4 Miscellaneous - Constitution and revisions 5 Miscellaneous - Poetry periodicals, 1922-1927 6 Miscellaneous - Poetry periodicals, 1935 7 Miscellaneous - Standards, 1930 8 Miscellaneous - Creative writing project, 1969 9 Miscellaneous - Critics Committee anthology 10 Miscellaneous - Photographs
11 Miscellaneous - Scrapbook addenda 12 Miscellaneous - Unrelated material Book 1 Echoes by Eliza McIntosh Burroughs Book 2 Scrapbook by Josie Lee Herrin Loose materials were removed from this book and placed in Box 6, Folder 11.