Ignoscenti Notwithstanding, Poetry Room Can Cater to All Verse Tastes

"I have known men of healthy interests who have been in residence at Harvard for four years without ever discovering the Poetry Room." comments Rollo W. Brown in a recent article in the Alumni Bulletin.

Four-year men who have managed to remain ignorant of the Woodberry Poetry Room in Widener may be exceptions, but it is a safe guess that most Freshmen and Sophomores in the College today either don't know about it, or have a hazy idea that it is a place where long-haired graduate seminars get together to discuss technical niceties of meter and rhyme.

Still others are discouraged from any investigation by its eyrie-like location on the fourth floor of Widener, at the very top of the formidable stairway to the left of the second-floor landing.

Primarily for Undergraduates

Actually, however, the Poetry Room has always been primarily for those who enjoy reading verso 'for the fun of it," and is designed to provide a comfortable, quiet retreat where interested students may while away an hour or so browsing through their favorite versifiers or discovering a few new ones--from William Blake to Ogden Nash. Unlike the Farnsworth Room, which is better known--and much closer to ground-level-- it is also a circulating library, and books may be taken out, under the usual rules.

A feature that is very popular with habitues is the large library of recorded poetry which may be heard over earphones on the two machines provided for that purpose, according to Miss Nora Cordingley, who takes time out from her duties as curator of Widener's Roosevelt Collection to assist John L. Sweeney, curator of the Poetry Room since 1942.

Large Record Library

Besides discs of Shakespeare and other masters, read by such experts as Basil Rathbone, the record section also contains the complete albums of American Folk Songs made by the Library of Congress in 1942 and edited by Alan Lomax. With Professor Smith's permission, interested students may even hear recordings of James Joyce himself, reading from "Finnegan's Wake."

Founded more than fifteen years ago, the Poetry Room was endowed by Harry H. Flagner, who was then President of the New York Philharmonic Symphony Society, in honor of his friend, George E. Woodberry '77, for many years professor of English at Columbia University, and a noted poet and critic in his own right, who died in 1930