Cover and Illustrations by Jean Pierre Cagnat
Quality Paperback, 131
pp.
ISBN 1-55246-002-9 @ $12.00
Introduction by Peter Ruber
Many of the poems are impressive in a kind of quiet, persistent, even-tempered
manner. Derleth at his best and that best is very good indeed..." So wrote the
Milwaukee Journal of August Derleth's Collected Poems (1967), in which the
author collected from almost a score of books those poems he most wanted to
preserve.
In a few well-chosen words a perceptive reviewer captured the essence of August
Derleth's poetry; the same may also be said of his Sac Prairie Saga — his
novels, short stories, and journal books. Outside of a select circle, Derleth
was not widely recognized as major influence or a driving force in the world of
poetry, primarily because he did not write poetry with an eye toward
publication. Most often writing poems was an introspective exercise to
strengthen his prose and to sharpen his powers of observation. Writing poetry
also provided him with an escape from the rigors of the steady stream of books
and stories that flowed from his typewriter during incredible bursts of creative
energy.
When he would decide to send occasional small groups of poems to a magazine, it
was only after ruthlessly weeding out dozens that he did not consider worthy of
publication. He often wrote to colleagues, and repeated in lectures, that he was
a minor poet. Because he applied such tough critical standards, he allowed only
a small portion of his entire output to appear in book form.
Most of Derleth's nineteen volumes of poetry were self-published over a span of
three-and-a-half decades, usually in elegant limited editions averaging 300-500
copies, by printers like Carroll Coleman of the Prairie Press, who set type by
hand and printed and bound them in the same fashion using distinctive papers,
typgraphic designs, and woodcuts. The best from these appeared in two large
collections — Selected Poems (1944) and Collected Poems — issued by commercial
publishers.
The vast wealth of Derleth's unpublished poetry waited to be discovered
twenty-five years after his death, among an incredible cache of unpublished
manuscripts hidden in his former home. Here we found some 1500 poetry
manuscripts and four collections he had assembled shortly before his death in
1971, treasures we intend to publish over the next few years along with his
other unpublished writings.
Derleth's poetry falls into three distinctive groups: poems of nature and the
environment; poems on the aspects of love; and incisive portraits of the lives
of quiet desperation led by the men and women of Sac Prairie, the fictional
milieu of his home town of Sauk City, Wisconsin. Only a dozen of the poems about
the Sac Prairie people were published in previous collections. All, we suspect,
were drawn from real-life. Early in life Derleth began to collect voluminous
notes about the people and the legends of those who had lived in the old houses
of his village. Some even appeared as recurring characters in his fiction and
journal books — people like Louisa Stoll, Poosey Lahman, Elka, the widow
Helgenau, and Beau Wardler. He neither condemns or pities them: he shows
compassion and deep understanding for human emotion and the human condition, and
he wrote about it in an exquisitely elegaic style.
It should be noted that Derleth's style is unique. It is neither free style
verse nor traditional in form. He cared little for the experimental school of
poetry; and other than a few early attempts to write poetry in traditional forms
like the sonnet, couplets and quatrains — each with its own distinctive rhyming
patterns — Derleth borrowed from both to create his own form of expression.
It might be said that Derleth wrote prose poetry, because much of his poetry was
formed out of prose-style sentences and notes he jotted down during his daily
walks on the periphery of Sauk City. One can see by reading those little
notebooks and from early, heavily corrected typed drafts, just how carefully he
crafted his words and phrases until he had achieved the right mood in as few
words as possible. Often his poems underwent revisions over a period of many
years before they wound up in print or in a pile of those he rejected.
We believe In a Quiet Graveyard has the ingredients to become as important as
Edgar Lee Masters' Spoon River Anthology, a landmark work that stood the
literary world on end when it was published in 1915. There are striking
similarities as well as significant differences between the two works. The main
similarity is that both deal with people who had lived in small, rural farming
communities. But whereas Masters lets each person speak from the grave and sum
up his or her own life, Derleth is the narrator, extracting the distinctive
flaws of character, the inability to love, and the self-imposed misery and
loneliness that followed them to the grave.
In Spoon River Anthology Masters broke away from the strictures of form and
rhyming patters and wrote each poem in free verse. Derleth is more creative.
Using lines of varying length with some considerable rhyming to punctuate a
mood, he creates a powerful and intense reading experience that often borders on
the hypnotic. It is difficult to say if Spoon River Anthology had a significant
influence on these poems or on Derleth's own poetry. Perhaps Spoon River
Anthology only reinforced his passion to write about his own microcosm, which,
in a sense, reflects the same characteristics and emotions people experience
wherever they live, whatever space of time.
And so we present In a Quiet Graveyard: Poems of the Sac Prairie People, an
important addition to the Sac Prairie Saga, by one of the most under-appreciated
creative artists of our times. We hope this series of new books by August
Derleth appearing under the "Hawk & Whippoowill" imprint will finally bring one
of America's most prolific and versatile writers the recognition he so richly
deserves.
— Peter Ruber
23 January 1997
Table of Contents: Poems
Billy Sand / 3
Buck Carringill / 4
Eli Wembler / 5
Old Matt / 6
Mrs. John Streng / 7
Father Meinrad Brunfels / 8
Dr. Wolgang Lauss / 9
Oscar Stuart / 10
Charlie Techmann / 11
Dr. Paul Tabor / 12
Mrs. Warner-Glenn / 13
Mrs. Emma Stillman / 14
Nemo / 15
Eliphas Mife / 16
Jeb Sneeder / 17
Elsie Medstrom / 18
Bertram Bunn / 20
Abner Hersey / 21
Anson Boggs / 22
Thomas Bardshaw / 23
Lily Manzer / 24
Daisy Vellairs / 25
Wesley / 26
Gunter Priell / 27
Alec Somers / 28
Ted Birkett / 29
Bart Hinch / 30
Lois Malone / 32
Mary Kempe / 33
Nell Barraclough / 34
Mink Rossik / 35
Christian Wingdon / 36
Martha Wingdon / 37
Hugo Blauenfeld / 38
Rena Larriquer / 39
Effie Kahlmann / 41
Weldon House / 42
Mrs. Eben Ford / 43
Hunchback Joe / 44
Hester Duff / 45
John Streng / 46
Jim Wetherby / 47
Mrs. Herman Mehst / 48
Esau Krell / 49
Lucinda Frayle / 50
Bob / 51
Ilsa Lahmann / 52
Henry Puli / 53
Oliver Vair / 54
Mrs. Clara Pell / 55
Ethel Burns / 56
Raynor / 57
Father Hemel / 59
Froly / 60
Alonzo Merrick / 61
Molly Pringle / 62
Adner Pringle / 63
Megan Hods / 65
Randolph Gread / 66
Amos Kled / 67
Barney Yancey / 68
Ada Legrand / 69
Obbie Legrand / 70
Kitty Vayne / 71
Michael Vayne / 72
Sister Bridget / 73
Raymond Sturk / 74
Joel Wingdon / 75
Manda Horrigan / 76
The Moore Twins / 77
Ella Wecter / 78
Mrs. Cory Venler / 79
Dr. Leopold Abort / 80
Rufus Straik / 81
Rewey Shanks / 82
Ed Garman / 83
Gus Pillep / 84
Sal / 85
Ab Barto / 86
Richard Monn / 87
Mrs. Emma Liddi / 88
Helen Merk / 89
Clara Halgenau / 90
The Widow Halgenau / 91
Mrs. Louisa Stoll / 92
Poosey Lahman / 93
Mrs. Samuel Lazar / 94
Elky / 95
Lawyer Beem / 96
Ralsa Hollascz / 98
Ginny Blye / 99
Albertina / 100
Old Mike / 101
Jo / 102
Asey Gratz / 103
Goadby Deckerman / 104
Karl Lahmann / 105
Esther Minex / 106
Mrs. George Halgenau / 107
Beau Wardler / 108
Josef Meier / 109
Sadie Galway / 110
Doc Raney / 111
Lute Brenner / 112
Doctor Flemberg / 113
Hen Mamund / 114
Quintus Flack / 116
Sophie Hornly / 117
Old Joe I / 118
Old Joe II / 119
Barney Ferle at 93 / 120
Barney Ferle at 97 / 121
John Siebers / 122
Deserted Farm / 123
Cemetery / 124
Old Farmer / 125
Ancestor / 126
Grandpa Loney Reads the Wind / 127
Grandpa Loney Says / 129
Grandpa Loney Gathers Grapes / 130
Grandpa Loney Reads the Catalogues / 131