Beloit College Magazine
Beloit College Magazine
Spring 2001 Contents
Departments
Features
- Do You Do What You Say You Do?
- Renewed Spirit Marks Inauguration Day
- On the Trail of Roy Chapman Andrews
- A Hands-on Approach to History
- Chalk One Up for Student-Faculty Research
- The Writing is On the Wall
- A Touch of Gold
- A Beloit and the Peace Corps: Adventures in Service
Contact Us:
Beloit College Magazine
700 College Street
Beloit, WI 53511-5595
608-363-2215 | 608-363-2870 FAX: 608-363-2615
belmag@beloit.edu
The cover art: a vivid and imperious rooster. The volume: 409 pages of astonishingly diverse poetry. The event: the publication of the 50th anniversary anthology of the Beloit Poetry Journal, a celebratory collection of talent that is rich, eclectic, and international.
The rooster art, courtesy of Franklin Boggs, professor emeritus of art, is his painting
“Cockamamie.” The title, A Fine Excess, describes the Beloit Poetry Journal throughout its
half-century of existence. The guiding hand that has kept the journal steady for the past
half-century is that of Marion Stocking, professor emerita of English at Beloit College.
A Fine Excess is from John Keats’ statement, “Poetry should surprise by a fine excess.” Indeed, the quote easily describes the more than 260 poems by 153 poets in the anthology, all published in the journal since its founding in 1950.
The poems are arranged chronologically. In the 1950s, for instance, the journal was an early—and in some cases the first—publisher of Galway Kinnell, Philip Levine, Robert Creeley, Maxine Kumin, Charles Bukowski, Anne Sexton, and James Dickey. It also introduced the poetry of Sherman Alexie, Mary Leader, and A.E. Stallings. Many poems—those by Louis Zukofsky, Sexton, and Dickey—are not available elsewhere.
Beginning in 1951 with Langston Hughes’ translations of Lorca’s Gypsy Ballads, the Beloit Poetry Journal has reprinted world poetry in translation, including poems from Bengali, Spanish, Nepalese, German, Punjabi, Scottish, Japanese, and Chinese poets.
In the introduction, Prof. Stocking, who has edited the Beloit Poetry Journal since 1954,
provides a history of the magazine’s founding, and credits colleagues and friends of the
journal for helping keep the quality high. In regard to the current volume, she cites
former Beloit College President Victor E. Ferrall, Jr., Beloit College Trustees Willard
Mackey’47 and William Nelson’47, and Maine Arts Commission Director Alden C. Wilson “...
for their generous personal contributions that made this publication possible.” Others
credited include Lee Sharkey, a poet and director of women’s studies at the University of
Maine at Farmington, and Beloit Professor of English John Rosenwald and David Sanderson as
technical or editorial contributors to the current volume.
Prof. Stocking, who invested 30 years in Beloit’s English department, has written all the reviews for the journal since the 1960s, and also recent essays on poets Philip Booth and John Haines.
—By Iris Poliski
Email:
Franklin Boggs - Professor Emeritus, Art
John Rosenwald - Professor of English
|
home | AT-College Query |
pubaff@www.beloit.edu |