) C/

THE PHOENIX

May 1960

PUBLISHED AS A LITERARY

SUPPLEMENT TO

THE ORANGE AND WHITE

editorial

In attempting to organize and publish the fourth issue of The Phoenix, this editor has begun to regard the magazine, its few contributors, and readers as the component parts of a literary oasis centered in an intellectual desert. Popular interest is non-existent. The gathering of material is a process of petitioning and exhorting. Publication of the results will be the termination of a frustrating and disillusioning experience.

The lack of intellectual curiosity and concern on this campus is appal­ling. When a student's attention is restricted to one field only, his education will prove to be a sadly deficient one. Archibald MacLeish has written of the disastrous consequences that will result "the moment the production of spe­cialists becomes the end and aim of American education." It would seem that the University of Tennessee is approaching just such a crisis.

Suitable material for contributions consists of short stories not exceeding 10,000 words; poems, preferably not over one-hundred and thirty lines; articles on literature, art, philosophy, current affairs and personal experiences; and pen and ink drawings. The Phoenix would welcome criticisms, support, and submissions from you, the student body. The quality and success of our efforts depend on and are determined by you.

Submit contributions to THE PHOENIX to

the S.F.O.B. office or THE ORANGE AND WHITE office.

Library The University of Tennessee

Knoxville

Price:

Separate Copy - 10 cents

With Orange and White - 5 cents

JEFF GREENE

fiction

poetry

exposition

art

reviews

May, 1960

editor

JEFF GREENE

section editors

JIMMY CLEMMER

DAVID RUBIN

JULIA WITT

DORIS RIVERS

LAURA JEAN GOSS

staff

JUANITA BRINKLEY, BRENDA

COPPOCK, SONJA ELIASSEN,

ANN FOOTE, MAC OTTOWAY,

SUE RENICK, CAROLYN SMITH.

business ma nager

FRED GENTRY

advisory board

DR. PERCY G. ADAMS, DR. DALE G.

CLEAVER, DR. ROBERT W . DANIEL,

DR. JAMES F. DAVIDSON, PROF.

JAMES E. KALSHOVEN, PROF. FRANK

THORNBURG.

THE PHOENI X Orange and White Literary Supplement

THE UNIVERSITY OF TENNESSEE

SUE RENICK

There the Dance

DON EVANS

Cover

The Door

JUANITA BRINKLEY

contributors

Nine Men by Fred Rodell: A Review

JOE HARKEY

Fear

SUE HICKS

Interlude

FRED H. MARTINSON

A Comment on Modern Art

DORIS RIVERS

Sketches

BAIN-SWIGGETT POETRY CONTEST WINNERS

Eugene Hollahan, Patricia Faust, Lynda R. McClanahan

•

There The Dance "Leprechauns! Leprechauns!" David McNamara

rubs his left hand against his temple. The American girl, Carol Hagan, had stood in the golden early morning haze that is one of the glories of Northern England in September, and had talked about lepre­chauns. It has been a long time since David has heard that word - in some Irish legend in Sandymount. A long time since he has thought about Sandymount. Since he went there eight years ago after Susan died.

He stares into the fireplace, his very dark-blue eyes following the play of sparks in the dying fire. Only dying sparks.

David McNamara is forty-two. Born in 1916 in Sandymount, Ireland, near Dublin, he took from this sparse headlands town his temperament and his ambi­tion: moods as volatile as the Irish Sea, and the desire to write, to be like W. B. Yeats who was also born in Sandymount, a poet of Ireland and of his times. But such dreams, David thinks, belong to the young. A bitter fact, for they suffer. They believe in dreams. David remembers his own disillusionment when one of the English professors at Cambridge told him his poems showed more exuberance than ability. He had gone back to Sandymount and worked in Emmit O'Hara's blacksmith shop. Learning life. Humph! As if one could. But he had returned to Cambridge, con­vinced the faculty that he intended to complete his degree, and gotten his scholarship renewed. He took his degree in philosophy and stayed at Cambridge, working toward an advance. Those years he had lived. He completed his first volume of poems, which Har­court-Powell published in 1941. Then there had been the war, and after that, the position as a lecturer in Philosophy at Oxford and holidays up here at Clay­ton Hall.

David tosses the cigarette he lighted a moment ago into the fireplace. Sparks in the dying fire. A girl with hair gold in the morning haze, and eyes green like the sea on a cloudy day. Carol Hagan from Menonkafee, Wisconsin. Exciting, these strange American names­some life lingers in them still, the moccasin whispers.

"Y ou had best go back to the Wetheringtons now," he had told Carol. Two hours ago she had sat in the honey and turquoise chintz lounge chair across the low mahogany table with its volume of Voltaire's essays and copies of the Literary Monthly. He thinks of Susan, whose hair was blond, too - not warmly gold like Carol's, but very light. Susan had died two years after they were married. Her parents had op­posed the marriage, saying that the demands of being an Oxford don's wife would be too much for her. She

3

had had rheumatic fever as a child. Susan had said that they exaggerated, and David, wanting to believe her, had not talked about it. He and Susan had been married secretly in the chapel at Marchester. Their life together had not been exciting, but neither of them had demanded excitement. And it had been good, companionable. Just over a year after they were mar­ried, Susan became pregnant. She lost the baby after four months and died from a heart attack following the miscarriage. And so, David thinks, he had come back from the war-back from death-and found death.

He walks to the window. The sky is intensely blue above the rich butternut color of the oak tree and the scarlet of the maples. He is remembering too much. El Alamein. Johnny Michaelson, the gentle Scottish boy who wanted to be a preacher, had died there, his stomach ripped open by machine-gun fire. David had fought like an Irish wild man that day. Like a beast, he thinks disgustedly. God! Before the war ended in 1945, he had ceased hating just the G~rmans. He had seen Englishmen who didn't behave so nobly-there had been Tommy Farrell who raped a ten-year-old Italian girl "just for the Hell of it." There had been others.

A sparrow hops onto the greystone terrace outside the window and David, watching -it, smiles, the faint line between his eyes deepening. ". . . human kind cannot bear very much reality." Do not disturb the embers of the past with new wood.

David decides to ring up Doug Wetherington, ask him to come over in the evening for a game of chess. He walks away from the window, across the long room to his desk, which is flanked on either side by book shelves reaching from floor to ceiling. He takes a ciga­rette from the box in the top left-hand drawer, tapping it against his watch before lighting it, then picks up the phone and asks for the Wetheringtons. Doug Wetherington was adjutant general for the regiment David fought with in Africa-the Royal Sixth.

"Hullo, is Lord Wetherington there?" David waits while Ebberts calls Wetherington.

"Hullo, Doug? David McNamara. I ... " "David!" Doug's voice interrupts heartily. "Has my

wife called you?" "No." "Well, she's going to-was going to. She won't

have to now. We want you to have dinner with us. Carol came back this morning and said she'd met you, so Elizabeth decided that you have to come to dinner here tonight."

"I don't know, Doug. I hadn't exactly planned . . ." "Of course. You hadn't heard about it yet. Bill

Peterson's here-London A.P., you know. He drove Carol up. Knew her father in Washington or some­thing."

"What time shall I be there?" It is probably wrong -stirring the embers.

"Dinner's at eight as usual, but come about seven, I've a new Enfield I want you to see."

"Right. Seven, then." "Good! Good of you to come." The receiver trans­

mits the brisk click of Wetherington's hanging up. A half ironic smile traces across David's lips, as he

stares at the receiver a moment before replacing it. So he will see her again. At least she is not a dream. Almost she could have been, walking out the misty morning and saying, "It seemed a good time for a walk. Perhaps I'll surprise a leprechaun," her green eyes sparkling, her voice hinting at scarcely suppressed laughter.

"You don't really believe in them, do you?" he had asked-rather stupidly, he thinks.

"Sure 'n I don' know. There be many a strange thing in the misty morrnin'."

"An' your brogue is on 0' them," David had chided. " 'Tis as phony as blarney in England."

Carol had looked down, then raising heavy, gold­brown lashes, she looked directly at him.

"That's because I'm an American," she said. "Are you Irish?"

"Well, I was at least. I haven't been back in ten years, but I was born in Sandymount." It was so easy, talking to a strange girl on a morning that was not quite real.

"Sandymount," Carol had said, as though consider­ing the sound of it. "I'm from Wisconsin-Menonka­fee. But isn't Sandymount where the poet, Yeats, came from?"

"Yes, it is. What brings you from . . ." David paused.

"Menonkafee. " "Yes. From Menonkafee, over to England?" "English," Carol said. "It's rather impossible. I'm

not sure I believe it at all." David asked her to walk to Clayton Hall and have

breakfast with him. "I want to hear your explanation," he had said.

"I hate to be so conventional on this enchanted morning, but we don't know each other at all," she said.

David felt slightly foolish, and a little annoyed. He must have realized that his invitation would lead to things becoming personal. "I'm sorry," he said, "it

4

must be the spell of your leprechauns. I'm David McNamara. "

"David ... do you mind? The leprechauns and all, that is?"

"No," David smiled at her, the lines of his face softening.

"I'm Carol Hagan, David. I'm visiting the Wether­ingtons. Bill Peterson brought me up."

They had begun walking over the dry, not yet leaf­strewn path.

"I don't know him," David said. "There's probably no reason why you should. My

father knew him in Washington when Bill worked with the Associated Press there. He's in charge of the London Bureau now."

They walked together almost in silence - an oddly companionable silence-to Clayton Hall, and entered David's sitting room from the terrace. Carol liked the long, warmly cheerful room with its mahogany panel­ling and somewhat faded wallpaper. She sat beside the fireplace in one of the chintz chairs, waiting for David to come back from the kitchen. The fire burned just brightly enough to warm the old bricks to a flame-touched glow. On the plain mantel stood two pewter candlesticks, the white candles in them slightly yellowed, and above it hung a painting of a turbulent sea.

Highly improbable, this whole situation, David thought as he carried coffee and hot buns into the sitting room.

"Servant problem," he said, his tone gently satirical. Carol wrinkled her nose. "I say, it is dreadful, isn't

it?" David poured her coffee. "All Englishmen don't drink tea?" "I'm Irish," David answered, sitting down in the

other chair that faced the fireplace. So he had told her about himself-the poetry, the

war, even Susan. Because, after all, it meant nothing. Only an apparition that would vanish, a spark that would die.

"And now you've retreated up here?" Carol had asked.

"Not at all. One must have a holiday now and then, you know. Or at least I must," he had said, irritated. Then looking away from her, toward the fire; con­tinued, "I'm teaching Greek philosophy at Oxford."

Carol had then told him her reason for being in England. One of her English professors at the Univer­sity of Wisconsin had suggested she try for a Com­monwealth-American Scholarship to Oxford. "Well, I thought it was futile ," she said seriously, "but I tried. Dad has always said you shouldn't think anything's impossible. So?" She shrugged her shoulders slightly.

"So here you are. But hadn't you best go back to the Wetheringtons' now? I suppose they'll be wonder­ing what's happened to you."

"Yes, I suppose they will," she said, sounding sur­prised by his abruptness. For the moment she seemed to have forgotten the Wetheringtons.

He walked with Carol to the door. "Thank you, David. I'm so glad to have met you," she told him simply.

"Good-bye, Carol," he had said. Then it ended. She walked down the stone path-a slight figure in a straight beige tweed skirt and brown sweater, her long hair bright in the sun.

Only a spark in the dying fire, David thinks.

He drove to the Wetheringtons' in the evening, the car windows rolled up against the chillness. The brightness of the burnt-copper sunset against the wind­shield annoyed him. As he approached Wether Heights he noticed again its irregular outline of massive dull grey stones with a wing and ill-proportioned tower that Doug always talked of doing something about. David thought he should. Clayton Hall, a simple two­storied ell of buff standstone with a dark brown roof and window trim, was more a house for living in. Ironic, David reflected-it is the Wetheringtons who live. He parked his black Hillman at the end of the long curve in the driveway beside the house.

Inside, Ebberts told him that Doug and Peterson were in the gun room. When David joined them, they were looking at the new Enfield, which Wetherington had mentioned over the . phone. "David McNamara, Bill Peterson," Wetherington said without looking up. The gun room was both comfortable and efficient, with its leather couch and chairs, recessed pine stor­age cabinets, and ample space for targets.

When Carol called from the top of the stairs, ask­ing if she could join them, David was listening to Doug's explariation of the sight on the Enfield. He and Wetherington were both surprised by Carol's accuracy when they began shooting target. Wetherington asked her about it, and she said that she and her father often went shooting together. Wetherington asked her about her father. She said that he practiced law in Menonkafee, and had served one term in Congress, but hadn't been re-elected. David only half listened. It didn't really matter. Not at all. His shot made the second ring from the center black. "My brother's in the Navy, in San Francisco now," he heard Carol say. Beautiful-her voice, deep and full of warmth as though she found life good. Perhaps she really did, he thought. Peterson's shots missed rather badly. Wetherington hit center twice, and Carol placed one of hers over his and the other one next to David's.

5

At dinner David sat next to Elizabeth, across from Carol and Peterson. He answered - almost without hearing them-the usual polite questions which Eliza­beth asked about his health and the Philosophy De­partment at Oxford. After dinner she suggested that Ebberts serve the port to them in the living room. David read disapproval in Ebberts' dilberately re­strained expression-the expression of a butler trained in the old days, the genteel days before the war, when the ladies retired to the drawing room for a demi-tasse, leaving the gentlemen to their port and stories. There is some affinity between himself and Ebberts, David thinks.

Later in the evening Elizabeth proposed a game of bridge, saying it didn't matter that there were five of them since someone always preferred to kibitz any.­way. David looked at Carol, who was sitting across a delicat~, marble-topped coffee table from him. She wrinkled her nose.

Elizabeth was fussing about having Ebberts set up the bridge table, and deciding who, after all, would "sit the game out."

"An oddly inappropriate expression," David com­mented and Carol smiled in amused agreement. He was again aware of her green eyes. They reminded him-rather abusurdly-of leprechauns.

David remembers little else of the evening as he drives back to Clayton Hall.

"Time past and time future . . . Point to one end, which is always present." David looks at the black shadows on the moonlit grey concrete of the highway. Time future does not exist. One must not think of it. Time present one must accept. But one lives-lives in the only sense that David McNamara can live-in time past. The present is too full of portent. Only in the past lies certainty. Only the past. The dying em­bers. The ashes.

David turns onto the narrow road, dusty with Sep­tember dryness, that leads to Clayton Hall. "The leaves of its past are what a strong tree feeds on." Something he read a long time ago. Feeds on? To what end? One can settle into the past, find there some measure of repose-of this David has been certain. But feed on it? That implies nourishment. David taps the palm of his hand against the cool hardness of the steering wheel. Carol's shoulder had touched his as she leaned toward him, watching the bridge game. There was a scent of sandlewood about her and he had remembered their meeting that morning.

It would be -possible to dream again, he thinks, even to plan . . . something. But dreams and plans involve the future. David parks the car in the old carriage house. Carol would be at Oxford. He would know her for a year perhaps, less if she went to Stockholm next

summer to complete her studies in Scandinavian lit­erature. A year at the most. It is better to let the fire die quietly, not to complicate life with close relation­ships. David stands on the stone terrace, feeling the September night. In Sandymount, eight years ago, after Susan's death, he had decided to avoid any fur­ther deep or permanent attachments. Encouraging this feeling for the American girl would only be asking to lose again what he loved. No, no, he thinks, love is too strong a word to describe his attraction tQ Carol -an American, almost twenty years younger than he. A spark alighting briefly on dying coals in a moment that was no part of reality. A misty morning and leprechauns.

David leaves Clayton Hall the next morning to re­turn to Oxford. White haze still lies unreally over the highway that follows the Marchester River valley among the low hills. Seven o'clock. Yesterday at this time ... no, a little later ... David tells himself that it does not really matter. The present became alive, but it was not the present. It was a moment out of time, and David is returning into time-his time.

He thinks of the title of the essay he has been pre­paring for the British Philosophical Institute's winter quarterly - "Influence of Platonic Forms on Stoic Philosophy." Why write this essay? Does it actually mean anything? But one must not question reality too much. Yet how, David wonders, can anyone call him­self a philosopher, or even a student of philosophy, who fears to question? Man's desire to know lies at the base of all philosophies, except perhaps the Skep­tics' . And for years, David thinks, he has been telling his students that the Skeptics' answer was no answer. Now he realizes that so far as his own life is con­cerned, he has lived as a skeptic-unsure, not believ .. ing in anything. But the past? He has believed in the past, in the philosophers who were certain because they lived in an age when certainty existed. Was their world different, or does it only seem so now that it is past?

David's hand rubs his left temple. Hell! What good is a man who has withdrawn so far from actual human life that he will not admit his honest affection for an attractive woman, that he takes refuge in futile philo­sophic circles? David thinks of Carol. There is more than just her attractiveness. Something real between them-small, perhaps imperceptible to anyone but themselves. She had wrinkled her nose at him, smiling, had several times met his eyes across the table. Yes­terday-yesterday-"time past . . ." The fog on the highway if lifting.

David sits at a rather cluttered desk in his small book-filled Oxford office, moving papers about, look-

6

ing for a letter opener, which he doesn't find. He uses an unbent paper clip instead.

Carol's letter-stubborn sparks that will not let the fire die quietly. Ironic. When he left North England three days ago he thought their relationship had been only a moment out of time, a moment that had quite definitely ended. He reads the letter:

David, The leprechauns and I send you greetings. We

hadn't expected you to leave so soon. The fine weather lasts, the mornings cool, and bathed in that beautiful haze that even fall mornings in Menonka­fee don't excel.

Yesterday Lord Wetherington took Bill and me hunting-an excuse to use the new Enfield. He of course easily got three rabbits, but Bill missed every­thing he shot at. He says it's fate, but I don't think he means that. At first I didn't particularly want to shoot anything, but then I remembered how much fun Dad and I had going hunting together, an~ really, David, I was rather proud of the buck I got. Lord Wetherington said, "Ha-nice shot!" in the most amazed way.

Last night after I went to my room I remembered your Voltaire, so I put on my robe and went down to the library. In addition to several French novels of the sort you read in high school, I found a book of selections from Voltaire and Rousseau. When I took it back upstairs and sat down to read, it fell open at Le Poeme sur le Desastre de Lisbonne. Vol­taire handles the Alexandrines effectively in this poem, but how bitter his tone!

Is life like that? You, who know so much of it, must understand it far better than I. Yet the thing about Voltaire that impresses me is his hope. We can "cultivate our garden" and hope.

Au revoir, David­Carol

David folds the letter slowly, and puts it back in the envelope. Disturbing-how much of himself he has revealed to Carol and how much she understands. "Cultivate our garden." "The leaves of its past are what a strong tree feeds on." Cultivate ... feeds on. David borrows a sheet of small note paper and an envelope from Howell in the next office. There is really nothing to say.

Dear Carol, Thank you for your letter. I am glad you are

enjoying your holiday. You might say hello to the leprechauns for me,

but don't hunt for the "pot of gold." Yours sincerely,

David McNamara

t I

I

David receives two more letters from Carol, which he does not answer. He feels restless, unable to work, bound by the booklined office to a way of life he has chosen, wondering now if it is not merely a way of escape. He speaks at an inter-college luncheon on "The Meaning of the Platonic Ideal Today." It is a bad speech. Now he sits at his desk, trying to prepare his first lecture for his "Introduction to Greek Philoso­phy" course. He runs the eraser of his pencil through his greying dark brown hair. " ... and there only is the dance," the dance that is life, the moment that is present. Not in Greece in 500 B. C.-although that age bears upon this as past upon present-not there lies life ...

David stares out the window at the grey sky and rain. He hears someone in the hall, probably Dr.

"The Door"

7

Howell coming back from his lecture. He glances toward the door. " . . . there only is the dance . . ."

"Carol," he says aloud. "Hello, David." She comes into the room, taking

the damp green scarf from her hair. Spots of water darken her light trenchcoat.

"I'm glad you've come, Carol. I think lowe you some explanation-about the letters." He rubs his temple.

"No, David." David looks at Carol-unsure. She is smiling, a

half-frowning, understanding smile. Here ... is the dance . . . the moment that is present, "the still point of the turning world."

"Would you join me for coffee?" David asks, al­ready putting on his dark grey rain-coat.

N in e Men by Fred Rodell: A Review Juanita Brintle" In his foreword, Rodell states his motto in evaluat­

ing men: "Better a plain-speaking conservative than a weak and weaseling liberal." And he certainly has not hesitated in applying this principle to himself in his writing.

Nine Men is a collection of Rodell's opinions of the men who have served on the United States Supreme Court from its beginning to the present. No well­known justice escapes his stinging sarcasm although benevolent benediction is given to those who are de­fenseless by virtue of death.

Rodell says that "Laws are words, nothing m~re." Laws are given body and meaning by the men who interpret and enforce them. These men in our country are "The nine men who are the Supreme Court of the United States [who] are at once the most powerful and the most irresponsible of all the men in the world who govern other men." Among the best [or worst] of these men are John Marshall - the Great Chief Justice -, Salmon P. Chase, J ames McReynolds, Pierce Butler, Owen Roberts, Felix Frankfurter, Sher­man Minton, and Fred Vinson. Regarding Roger Brooke Taney, Rodell says, he was a "defender of the people against flagrant financial exploitation backed by legal authority ... the judicial spokesman of the old South." Even though such statements may be face­tiously critical, they are relatively mild when com­pared to the slaps Rodell takes at the other justices;

The real hero of Rodell's book is Oliver Wendell Holmes who "with the patient persistence of water dripping on rock, repeated and rephrased and repeated

his steady dissent ... " and "gave to the Court and the nation a fresh, new breath of freedom and deeper faith in democracy, aflaunt and unafraid." But then, Rodell admits that being a liberal himself, he tends to admire liberals; and Holmes is unversally labeled a great liberal.

Rodell has hopes for the present Court. He believes that Chief Justice Warren has possibilities of becom­ing a great judicial statesman while the rest of the Court may suddenly realize that freedom of thought should be their goal. He also thinks that this combi­nation may lead to the rebirth of the American dream of freedom. However, by voicing this hope, Rodell contradicts himself. His assumption that these justices unanimously will agree to uphold freedom of thought contradicts his entire thesis: that the Supreme Court is a body of men, not a "nine-headed calculating ma­chine ... ready to give automatic answers to any ... " constitutional questions.

Throughout Nine Men, Rodell deplores American style judicial review, but he feels that since it does exist, it is his duty to fill the justices with a sense of responsibility and obligation. His hope that "under . . . the aegis of a potentially great Chief Justice [Warren], the American dream of freedom may be reborn" seems less a sincere hope and more an attempt to end the book with a rhetorical flourish. Nine Men is an amusing satire if read superficially, but if read critically, Rodell's constant harping and snapping at the justices becomes boring, his flippant lack of re­spect, disgusting.

Sonnet Now we assume again fair attitude And all our longing days merge into one. We heal the blur, the litter, and the dun, And imprecisions fall to certitude. Now each in each undoes his singleness. Safe in a surety of recompense We ply the edges of our aching sense, With gentle motion and with sweet caress.

I marvel at the longing and the fear That now suffice to tell our tender theme; How you away become a thing so dear And various-woman and disturbing dream. I merge with you, and heal, and notice how I say forever, and mean now and now.

EUGENE HOLLAHAN

8

l I

Interlude Momentarily pass from the chaos of humanity. Infinite solitude awaits in the imagination. Wander through the intoxicating world of thought. Drink in its lovely springs of tranquillity. Sweet is this refreshment peculiar to dreamers. The madness of deceit and corruption Fades in a world of serene secrecy. Transfigured is evil into images of beauty and truth. Peace is King And complacency his Queen. Theirs is the kingdom of philosophical wandering. Here the mind meanders Absent of restraint and intimidation. But alas, as all kingdoms suffer aggressive foes So be the fate of this precious demesne. Time is the intruder-demanding recognition, Jealously seeking to retaliate for the seduction That captivated your attention. Return is the command To which you must comply. The dream begins to fade. Reluctantly you journey back to reality. Returning, the previous madness has subsided. The spirit is now' more able to bear. A brief rendezvous with thought has Abated the tension of the flesh. Observe the quixotic expression of puzzlement Worn by those around you when they say, "You're not with us today." Yes, your absence was detected, But then what is not in this world of scrutiny? Only those fleeting moments of tender interlude Escape the curiosity of inquisition.

9

SUE HICKS

Bain-Swiggett Poetry Contest Eugene Hollahan, a graduate student in English, has been awarded the Bain·Swiggett Poetry Prize,

for a group of frve poems. Honorable mention for a group of three poems was awarded to Lynda R.

McClanahan, a freshman in Liberal Arts, and to Patricia Faust, a senior in Liberal Arts, for a group of

translations from th9- German .

The prize of forty dollars awarded Mr. Hollahan was furnished by Dr. and Mrs . Glen Levin Swiggett

of Washington, D. C. An additional prize, a year's subscription to The Lyric, a nationally circulated

journal of poetry, was donated by Professor Robert Avrett, of the department of Romance Languages .

Judges were Professor Avrett: Professor James Davidson of the Department of Political Science,

Professor Nathalia Wright of the English Department, Mr. Patrick Spurgeon of the English Department,

and Miss Sue Renick, of the editorial staff of The Phoenix.

Nachts (from the German of Eichendorff)

(Honorable Mention)

I wander in the silent night Enchanted by the moon's pale light Which slips through darkling clouds of fleece. Within the magic vale Awakes the nightingale-A song of love, then constant peace.

o wondrous music of the dark-Soft tremblings through the branches stark. And rippling streams that wander past Murmur this truth to me, "Your life's reality Is but a dream and will not last."

PATRICIA FAUST

Storm At Sea (Honorable Mention)

I stood in the midst of the storm, terrified By the wet winds that slapped at my face And howled in my ears like a demon of old. Every nerve of my body grew tense-electrified­As I stood in that dark and eerie place So confused and afraid . . . so empty . . . so cold .

I had come to the shores of the vast black sea Of Life and Love, to try to renew My faith. in them. But now it seemed That weird forms leaped up and laughed at me In a fit of madness! And white foam flew In the air, and they opened wide mouths and screamed!

When storm and despair had climbed to a peak A new sound joined the voice of the wind. It was your sigh, so much like my own; For you too had braved the black night to seek

11

The answers. Somehow the thick blackness thinned At the realization-I was not alone.

Mutual presence at so strange a place Drew us together. And as you came near The monsters of fear lay down in the sea, Leaving their mad froth as delicate lace. A sense of peace replaced my fear As howling winds grew whispery.

It was your coming that gave me release From fear, and that abated the storm Of confusion. Perhaps this is one mystery Already solved; for now I have peace Instead of fear, and now I am warm As we gaze, hands clasped, into the deep sea.

LYNDA MCCLANAHAN

New Editorial Staff

for THE PHOENIX JEFF GREENE, Editor:

A junior in the College of Liberal Arts, majoring in Eng­lish, has for the past year been Fiction Editor of The Phoenix.

JIMMY CLEMMER, Fiction Editor:

A junior in the College of Liberal Arts, majoring in Eng­lish, has previously served as Exposition Editor of The Phoenix.

JULIA WITT, Exposition Editor:

A junior in the College of Home Economics, majoring in Related Art, has worked with The Phoenix as a staff typist and copy-reader.

LAURA JEAN GOSS, Review Editor:

A sophomore in the College of Liberal Arts, majoring in Biology, has written book and play reviews for The Phoenix.

DORIS RIVERS, Art __ Editor:

A junior Fine Arts major, has worked with The Phoenix art staff and designed the cover for the March, 1960 issue.

FRED GENTRY, Business Manager:

A junior in the College of Business Administration, majoring in Advertising, has previously worked with The Orange and White.

12

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Fear Fear is a foul-mouthed beast Which Stalks us well in shadow But, when countered by regenerating light, Growls nervously like a cornered cur And jerkily pulls himself sideways Again toward dank darkness, With pinched fore-shoulders and tensed knees, Tail pressed between shimmying, half-crouched hind legs, His gray, dung-matted fur frozen on end. When our guard is down, Growler becomes driver, whipping us frenzied Into cowardice and acts of filial desecration, Cleaving brother from brother with his foam flecked fangs, His most effective devices: himself, Fear, and suspicion. Now snader, now whimperer, he holds council With our submerged insecurities, The un-Godlike element of the human dualism; Then, with razored fangs bared by arched pink lip, Stench of carrion breathed from insinuating mouth Into our unsure ego (Just as once Another breathed life into clay man), He inflames us with outrage, Offers us putrid teat to suck, Dissevering us from our ability to trust Until we are remade in his image: snarling, A foul-mouthed beast, hellish in darkness, A furtive, soul-less form cautiously side-pedalling With cocked head and bowed neck Down a dark alley.

JOE HARKEY

A Comment On Modern Art :JreJ fi. marlin60n

U. t. Alch\V

There is a tendency today to use the terms "ab­stract" and "modern art" interchangeably when speak­ing of non-objective or extremely modified, objective works of art. Strictly speaking, all artists are abstract artists. That is, they take nature and interpret it in some way, or they reach into their minds for material. For this reason, the result is always dependent on how the artist uses his material. The artist is abstract, be­cause he abstracts from nature or from his mind.

tion of nature. As stated before, the artist might use these modifications to enhance his subject, but he might use modifications simply to get started. In the latter. case, the ar.tist is using modifications to get started, but his goal is to combine lines, shapes, and colors in a composition to evoke feelings from the viewer directly. He is asking for an interpretation. In other words, the viewer gets out of a work what he puts into it.

Even when nature is the starting point, the artist tries to balance lines, shapes, and colors. He gives order to his subject matter by using these elements to enhance his subject and to evoke feelings from his viewers that are more than simply reactions to a story. Viewers, especially art critics, will not react favorably to work that is discordant and lacks thoughtful com .. position. There has not been a good artist in the his­tory of art who has not abstracted nature and given order to his work. When art begins with nature in this manner, it is usually called objective art.

Frequently, the observer will not be able to deter­mine whether or not subject matter was the starting point. This is because there are degrees of modifica-

At the beginning of the twentieth century, non­objective art was introduced. The artist goes directly to his mind to communicate even more directly with the observer. The goal is the same as in the extremely modified, objective work; only the beginning is differ­ent.

The intelligent observer might well avoid the term "abstract" and interpret the work of art either as ob­jective or non-objective. There are hazy boundaries between these two terms, and, therefore, one viewer's guess is as good as another's when the categories are not obvious. However, "abstract" can mean any type of art and is less clear a term than objective or non­objective.