#brendan dooley
A Pint o’ Poetry for St. Patrick’s Day
As we contemplate the Emerald Isle and what’s in the pot at the end of the rainbow this St. Patrick’s Day, likely nothing much will go better with our glass of Guinness than a pint o’ poetry. (Okay, maybe a dram of so of Jamesons and some lamb stew … but back to that poetry).
Tucked away in a small corner of the archives is the collection, Arena Editorial Office Files, 1960-1965, from Coolgreany, Ireland, which includes the works, correspondence and galley proofs from the abbreviated run of an Irish literary magazine’s four issues. This collection, UWM Mss 002, was the second manuscript collection acquired by the archives after the highly regarded The Little Review collection.
Purchased in 1966 for the burgeoning archive (with literary aspirations), accessioning paperwork includes a note between administrators:
“Any interest in this? ‘Arena’ is not 'The Little Review,’ but then the price is different too."
Indeed, a receipt shows theArena collected works cost $980 in February 1966. In fact, the bookseller’s notes show they set the collection aside for the university in case they wanted it:
"Knowing of your own special enthusiasm in the field of little magazines.”
In that short press run of four issues between 1963 and 1965, Arena published poems and short stories from (mostly) Irish authors including Patrick Kavanaugh, Thomas Kinsella, Mary Lavin and others.
You can’t bring your Guinness into the reading room, but you can get your fill of Irish verse while you’re here. The UWM Archives is open Monday to Friday, 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Pictured above:
- The entire print run forArena an Irish literary magazine from the early 1960s (Box 1, Folder 2).
- The cover of Arena Issue No. 3 featured a picture of the three editors (Box 1, Folder 10).
- The last page of the last edition of Arena, featuring the issue’s contributor notes and a poem by Patrick Kavanagh (Box 1, Folder 6).
–Brendan Dooley, Archives Graduate Intern
