Boar's Head Society
The Boar's Head Society was a student conversazione society devoted to poetry at Columbia University. It was an "adjunct to Columbia College's Philolexian Society... The purpose of their new society was entirely creative: reading and commenting on each other's works."
History
John Erskine, English professor, formed the society. This connected the society through him to Columbia's student literary magazine, The Morningside Review. In 1931, it claimed to be the only organization on campus "devoted exclusively to poetry."The society seems to have started during the 1909–1910 academic schoolyear, as in November 1909 it sponsored theatrical productions of Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors and Oscar Wilde's An Ideal Husband.
Competitions
The society also held annual literary competitions and then published winners in the magazine. Competition judges included William Carlos Williams. Winners included John Berryman, Terrence McNally, John Hollander, and Allen Ginsberg.At some point, the magazine took over the competition from the society.
Members
Student members included:- 1910s: Lewis Mumford, Kenneth Burke Alfred A. Knopf, Sr., Randolph Bourne, Irwin Edman, Lloyd R. Morris, Mark Van Doren
- 1920s: Whittaker Chambers, Louis Zukofsky, Samuel Theodore Hecht, Lionel Trilling, Eleanor Bell
- 1930s: John Berryman, Ralph de Toledano, Barry Ulanov
- 1940s: Daniel Hoffman, John Hollander, Allen Ginsberg
- 1950s: Terrence McNally
Impact
The April 1935 issue of the Columbia Review, Lionel Trilling wrote "Boar's Heart: 25 Years" and Mark Van Doren wrote a "Note on Poetry".In 2006, Hoffman reminisced, "When I returned to Columbia after the Second World War, I joined the Boar's Head Society, which was a little group of poets. In those days, colleges didn't like poets to do anything, so we ponied up the hundred bucks and invited him".