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Armageddon
Poetry Society of South Carolina, 1923. Octavo. First edition. First appearance of this poem, which was awarded the Poetry Society of South Carolina Southern Prize for 1923. This publication also prints the poems which received honorable "A Fragment" by William Alexander Percy, and "Avalon" by Donald Davidson. Very light spots on some pages as seen in photos, else a near fine copy of this scarce publication, in printed wrappers.
Paperback
Published January 1, 1923
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August 2, 2025I’m doing research for a presentation in October about the history of poetry at the Citadel where I work as a librarian). As part of that I’m reading through a lot of the papers of the Poetry Society of South Carolina that we have in the Archives. The Citadel kinda ran the show for a while at least in the 50s, and I think earlier, and there were Citadel professors involved from the early days.
Anyway, this is an oddity in those papers. I’ve been reading through the early Yearbooks of the Society, and the title poem here won the Southern Prize in 1923, and normally would have been in the 1923 yearbook. It was controversial as it could be seen as blasphemous by some members of the very conservative leaning Society. So, at a cost that was more than the Society could really afford they printed it separately with the two runner up poems, a lyric poem called “A Fragment” by William Alexander Percy, the uncle and guardian of one of my favorite novelists, Walker Percy, and another narrative poem, Avalon, by Ransom’s fellow Fugitive (later New Agrarian) poet Donald Davidson (who was a segregationist). I got the information about why they published this way from James Lundy’s History of the Poetry Society of South Carolina.
Honestly Percy’s “A Fragment” is, I think, the best of the three. A lyric poem about belief, uncertainty and faith. It’s really good. I can see having him as a guardian growing up put Walker Percy onto literature.
The prize poem is pretty good, even if it seems, on one level, to be Ransom’s attempt to display his facility with arcane words. I’m all for poetry using a robust vocabulary; it seems ridiculous to not use all the tools you have. But at some point, this crossed over into sort of grandstanding, and this was arcane even in 1923. That said, it’s a pretty good metered and rhymed poem about Christ and the Devil getting together to fight, then gradually just hanging out with each other and drinking and singing until God has to step in and remind them they were there for battle. It ends with a funny line, unclear whether delivered by God or Christ, “These Armageddons weary me much.” I get that it’s clever to use a lot of arcane words to deliver a story that would be more shocking a hundred years ago than now, but still, it’s a little overboard.
Overall, though good stuff. Reading Lundy’s history helped a lot, so I’m going to read the yearbooks alongside his history at this point as I think I’ll get much more out of them.
Anyway, this is an oddity in those papers. I’ve been reading through the early Yearbooks of the Society, and the title poem here won the Southern Prize in 1923, and normally would have been in the 1923 yearbook. It was controversial as it could be seen as blasphemous by some members of the very conservative leaning Society. So, at a cost that was more than the Society could really afford they printed it separately with the two runner up poems, a lyric poem called “A Fragment” by William Alexander Percy, the uncle and guardian of one of my favorite novelists, Walker Percy, and another narrative poem, Avalon, by Ransom’s fellow Fugitive (later New Agrarian) poet Donald Davidson (who was a segregationist). I got the information about why they published this way from James Lundy’s History of the Poetry Society of South Carolina.
Honestly Percy’s “A Fragment” is, I think, the best of the three. A lyric poem about belief, uncertainty and faith. It’s really good. I can see having him as a guardian growing up put Walker Percy onto literature.
The prize poem is pretty good, even if it seems, on one level, to be Ransom’s attempt to display his facility with arcane words. I’m all for poetry using a robust vocabulary; it seems ridiculous to not use all the tools you have. But at some point, this crossed over into sort of grandstanding, and this was arcane even in 1923. That said, it’s a pretty good metered and rhymed poem about Christ and the Devil getting together to fight, then gradually just hanging out with each other and drinking and singing until God has to step in and remind them they were there for battle. It ends with a funny line, unclear whether delivered by God or Christ, “These Armageddons weary me much.” I get that it’s clever to use a lot of arcane words to deliver a story that would be more shocking a hundred years ago than now, but still, it’s a little overboard.
Overall, though good stuff. Reading Lundy’s history helped a lot, so I’m going to read the yearbooks alongside his history at this point as I think I’ll get much more out of them.
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