Men who get together to argue.
That seems, for some reason, completely normal.
We’re used to seeing these little competitions of ego both on the larger scale and small: in politics, in football, in classroom debates- heck, in off-the-wall pub conversations I’ve overheard on the hotly debated and very serious issue of coke versus pepsi. (For the record, Pepsi is apparently sweeter, but Coke is from Atlanta, so…coke wins either way).
Now, men who get together to argue about poetry.
That’s…less normal, but still. Not all the way to weird.
And it’s believable, at least, especially if you’ve ever spent way too much time on the internet like I have, where you’ll quickly find that people can find a way to argue about almost anything.
But men who get together to argue about poetry…in the South?
Now that is…not normal.
In fact, I dare say, it starts to sound a little bit …weird.
Or, at least, that’s what people would usually think.
The South isn’t usually attributed to any great, sophisticated art form beyond their ability to brew some kick-ass sweet tea or fry up some delicious chicken, after all.
And in most cases, they serve people only as the unholy antithesis to all things progressive and good in the world- a twangy, hee-hawing, blank-stared example to call upon whenever you need a quick punchline for a joke.
And yet, it was this sentiment (well, a more “1900s” worded version of it, anyway) that spurred a group of male Southern poets to gather together and do exactly that- fight back against the stereotypes-
…via a strongly-worded magazine.
What they were really fighting against, of course, ran a tad bit deeper than a mere pushback against a not-so-subtle dig at the South.
And in the 1930’s, the most well-known member of the group perhaps, a man named John Crowe Ransome, published a manifesto of ideas for people who wanted to follow their line of thought- mainly that industrialization: bad, Southern culture: good.
It was the beginning of a movement- to preserve the South’s traditions in the belief that that was the solution to their economic problems and to the encroaching and dehumanizing threat of the industrial world.
Whether or not that was true, of course, is up for debate. And, in fact, later, Ransome himself actually ended up turning on the movement and publicly criticizing it…
But, the main point of all this is, really, that the group of well-educated Vanderbilt men trying to prove Southerners were capable of great creativity and art, the group that published the literary magazine titled The Fugitive, were called collectively…The Fugitives- literally just the title of their magazine.
Their writing itself, thankfully, was much better than their skill for naming things, proven here by the eloquent and wistful work below, written by Fugitive member Walter Clyde Curry.
“I Have Not Lived”
Though half my years besiege the aged sun,
I have not lived. My robust preparation
Lags tardily behind fit consummation,
Droops sweatily in courses just begun.
Oh, I have loved and lusted with the best,
Plucked momentary music from the senses;
I’ve kissed a lip or two with fair pretenses
And wept for softness of a woman’s breast.
My mind rebounds to nether joys and pain,
Toying with filth and pharisaic leaven;
I know the lift up sundry peaks to heaven,
And every rockless path to hell again.
I wait the hour when gods have more to give
Than husks and bare insatiate will to live.
And so, The Fugitives’ ideas are still widely praised, particularly in conservative media outlets today, and their works are rightfully credited with both redefining and elevating the South’s sense of poetry.
Original mission accomplished.
Works Cited
“The Fugitives: Homepage.” The Fugitives: Homepage. Vanderbilt University, n.d. Web. 01
Feb. 2017.
“Fugitives (poets).” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 01 Feb. 2017.
“Southern Agrarians.” Harry Ransom Center RSS. N.p, n.d. Web. 01 Feb. 2017.
“Southern Agrarians.” Engl352 / Southern Agrarians. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Feb. 2017.
“Southern Agrarians.” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 01 Feb. 2017.
“The Fugitives and Agrarians.” Vanderbilt University Archives. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Feb. 2017,
http://www.library.vanderbilt.edu/speccol/vuhistory/fugitives_agrarians.php