The Jefferson Market Library workshop met weekly to explore the history of Greenwich Village poets and poetry publications to which “Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstream” was a very recent and very small addition. We published both child and adult participants in theme issues, which included an annual valentine to the Village. Through amiable participation in open discussions about poetry, publishing and history, the group learned from each other.
For a discussion of poetry from the Masses leading up to World War I, our photocopier printed enough copies of poetry excerpted from the magazine for the group to share. Participants could look on the text as it was read aloud. The Masses, whose editorial board included Max Eastman, John Sloan, and Witter Bynner, published socially engaged art and poetry. It took an anti war stand, and encouraged resistance to the draft. Our group discussion included Dorothy Meyer, a retired teacher. She shared with me her husband’s book, “Hey, Yellowbacks!” Ernest Meyer was a progressive journalist from Wisconsin who was jailed in Forth Leavenworth for refusing military service as a conscientious objector during the First World War. In the workshop, Dorothy shared anecdotes about her acquaintances with the poets and writers of the Village who summered in Provincetown. She recalled the time she mended the trousers of the hobo poet, Harry Kemp who had been living out in the dunes.
The participants loved literature and good company. Dorothy’s friend, Josephine recited in Latin the opening stanzas to Virgil’s Aeneid. Another participant, Gertrude Morris, was quick to correct me any time I misquoted a line from T. S. Eliot. My friends from the community poets also came to participate in the workshop. Barbara Holland came most frequently. We were also visited by Emilie Glenn, Matt Laufer, Richard Davidson, and Sidney Bernard. My friend, Paul Johnston, who published the Poetry Quartos in 1929, lived across the street from the library and paid a visit to the workshop.
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