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

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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.

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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.

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Index Terms

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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.

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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.

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Sponsorship

Encoding funded by a 2012 Documenting Democracy grant from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission.

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Container List

 

Organizational Records, 1923-1977

Box

Fldr

1

1

Reports, 1923-1924

2

Reports, 1925-1926

3

Reports, 1927-1928

4

Reports, 1929-1931

5

Reports, 1932-1933

Reports

Reports

Reports

Reports

Reports

Reports

Reports

Executive Board Minutes, 1966-1971

Executive Board Minutes, 1972-1976

Box

Fldr

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

Box

Fldr

3

1

Correspondence, 1969

2

Correspondence, 1970

3

Correspondence, 1971

4

Correspondence, 1972-1980

 

Publications and Submissions, 1929-1998
Box	Fldr
3	5	Poetry collections -- Anthology of Verse, 1929
		Poetry Collections -- Anniversary Book, 1948, 1973
		Poetry Collections –- Copyright permissions for 50th anniversary book, 1972
Box	Fldr
3	8	Monthly Poems, 1923
	9	Monthly Poems, 1924
	10	Monthly Poems, 1925-1929
	11	Monthly Poems, 1930-1933
	12	Monthly Poems, 1935-1944
Box	Fldr
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
Box	Fldr
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
Box	Fldr
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
Box	Fldr
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
Box	Fldr
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
Box	Fldr
8	11	Clippings, 1922-1924
	12	Clippings, 1925-1927
	13	Clippings, 1928-1930
	14	Clippings, 1931-1932
Box	Fldr
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
Box	Fldr
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
Box	Fldr
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.