Our new exhibit, San José State University’s Legacy of Poetry, is located on the fifth floor of the Martin Luther King Jr. Library. Curated by Student Assistant Alona Hazen in honor of National Poetry Month, the exhibit features the works and lives of poets who have walked SJSU’s campus since its beginnings. Whether student or faculty (or both!), these poets have contributed to a legacy over a century strong and thriving.
Student Jean Holloway (above, 1938) and Professor Esther Shephard (below, 1941) pictured as members of the Pegasus Literary Society in the university's La Torre yearbooks.
I was especially excited to be able to highlight two women who were part of SJSU’s community in the 1930s and 40s: student Jean Holloway and professor Esther Shephard. Their materials can be seen in the cases near the elevators. Both women pursued poetry primarily as a hobby, led professional lives centered on writing as an art, and were active members of our university via various clubs and organizations.
Jean Holloway, born Gratia Jean Casey, attended San José State in the late 1930s. She was an active member of several university clubs, including the Pegasus Literary Society, the Radio Speaking Society, and the San José Players. Poetry was just one of Holloway’s creative outlets, though she excelled at it and won many awards in her time as a student. Her poems range in subject from the everyday to the fantastical and in tone from the anxious to the whimsical.
A talented writer, Holloway’s radio scripts aired on San José’s local station, KQW, and on San Francisco’s local station, KYA, while she was a student. Her writing pursuits led her to become a scriptwriter for radio, film, and television in Hollywood from the 1940s through the 1970s. Holloway made her professional break into radio when she was hired to work on The Kate Smith Show by Ted Collins, leaving San José State as a sophomore. She later contracted with the studio MGM, for which she wrote three musical films. Holloway primarily wrote for television from the 1950s on, writing over 500 episodes of television’s first long-running daytime soap opera, The First Hundred Years.
Esther Shephard, born Esther Maria Lofstrand, was a professor in San José State’s English Department from 1939 until 1959. During her time at the university, Shephard participated in numerous poetry readings and talks, judged student literary competitions, and often worked with clubs such as the English Club and the Free-lance Writing Club. As El Portal had been discontinued during World War II, Shephard was a founding advisor of its successor, The Reed, in 1948. Shephard continued to advise the Pegasus Literary Society, which sponsored Reed, after her retirement.
Shephard began her career as a high school teacher in Montana before deciding to attend the University of Washington after the death of her first husband. She earned her Ph.D. there in 1938. Shephard’s dissertation, Walt Whitman’s Pose, was published that same year. She would continue to focus on the renowned poet throughout her career. Another of her achievements was the retelling of the ancient Chinese legend The Cowherd and the Sky Maiden, published in 1950 and later staged as an opera at Shephard’s alma mater. Shephard’s work also included one-act plays and Paul Bunyan, a collection of logging camp stories.
Dr. Henry Meade Bland teaching class outside San José State Teachers College, 1929.
In the upper cases of our foyer, I created a timeline of university poets, accompanying University Archivist Carli Lowe’s exhibit on Faricita Hall Wyatt, an amazing SJSU alum who also published her own poetry. Far from definitive, the timeline cases offer just a sample of the poetry written by SJSU students and faculty over the last century. Love, loss, and contemplation find their expression here, perhaps offering connection and even hope to readers.
More than a legacy of individual poets, this is a legacy of community.
Dr. Henry Meade Bland, poet laureate and professor of English, had a role in the establishment of The Quill, a student publication which continues today as the award-winning Reed Magazine. His impact as a founding member of our university’s legacy of poetry cannot be understated and was certainly appreciated by his students, who continued to honor him after his death.
A more recent thread of connection on display highlights the continuing influence poetic friendships and mentorship have on our community. Sandra McPherson was featured during SJSU’s Contemporary Poetry Festival in 1977, as was poet Robert Bly. Bly was influential for poet Nils Peterson, featured a few cases down. Inspiringly, these connections went far beyond our campus, as Peterson and Naomi Clark showed in founding Poetry Center San José, an organization which seeks to “nurture…diverse literary expression” to this day.
Exhibit case near the fifth floor elevators, 2024.
Given the limitations of the space available for the exhibit, it was difficult to choose materials that would not only display well, but that would truly reflect the rich history of poetry we have in the archive. I chose to focus on poets who either attended or worked at SJSU, though this left out many materials we have relating to poets from across the country and even around the world. Notable poets whose works I did not feature include Charles Bukowski, Robert Frost, Aldous Huxley, Czesław Miłosz, and Ezra Pound, among others. Admittedly, SJSU itself has been home to more poets than could be featured in this exhibit. The English Department’s extensive efforts to preserve our university’s Legacy of Poets can be found here.
To view materials from our collections, please make an appointment by contacting us at special.collections@sjsu.edu. Collections featured in this exhibit include the Student Publications Collection, the Jean Holloway Papers, the Esther Shephard Papers, the Carolyn Grassi Papers (in process), and the Virginia de Araujo Papers (yet to be processed). We welcome you to search for other poetry materials via our Online Archive of California finding aids, notably that of the Poetry Journals and Chapbooks Collection.
Additionally, a number of poetry books are held in our Rare Books Collection and can be searched via the university library’s OneSearch. To narrow your search to items held by the Special Collections & Archives, please filter “location” to the various “Special Collections” options on the left hand side of the page.
Post written by Alona Hazen, Special Collections & Archives Student Assistant.
Collection Spotlight: The Harry Edwards Papers
A Scholar, An Activist: Selections from the Harry Edwards Papers is located in the SJSU Special Collections & Archives Reading Room on the fifth floor of the Martin Luther King Jr. Library. This exhibition features documents, journals, artifacts, and more donated from Dr. Harry Edwards. His career as a sociologist and professional sports consultant has deeply impacted the culture of inclusion and representation of Black Athletes.
A distinguished professor and dedicated proponent of civil rights, Dr. Harry Edwards’ first came to San Jose State College. Here he excelled as an honor student on the basketball and track and field teams until his graduation in 1964. Afterwards he received his Master’s in Sociology from Cornell University before returning to SJSC as an instructor.
Along with then Sociology graduate student, Kenneth Noel, they founded the United Black Students for Action, an organization to fight against the discrimination of Black students, especially those in the Athletics Department. After gaining traction and hosting the Black Youth Conference in Los Angeles, the movement gained national renown after voting to boycott the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City. The Olympics Committee for Human Rights was formed, culminating in the famous black power salute on the podium by Tommie Smith and John Carlos.
Dr. Edwards continued his work as a professor and activist at UC Berkeley after he received his PhD in Sociology. Over the years, he guest lectured at numerous campuses and wrote several books, including The Revolt of the Black Athlete in the immediate aftermath of the Olympic Games.
In the 1980s, Dr. Edwards also began working as a consultant to many professional sports organizations. He developed programs to create better conditions and promote minoritized groups for the Golden State Warriors and Major League Baseball. His longest partnership was as a staff consultant to the San Francisco 49ers, where he worked closely with former coach, Bill Walsh.
The events of his life reflect the changes towards progress for Black Athletes throughout the nation. It can inform our understanding of where we have been and what actions are needed to continue seeking a better, more equitable culture.
To view the other materials in the Harry Edwards Papers, please make an appointment by contacting us at special.collections@sjsu.edu.
For more information about the Civil Rights Movement at San Jose State College in the 1960s, please refer to our other collections, San José State University Civil Rights and Campus Protest Collection and the San Jose State College "Speed City" Collection.
Post written by Eilene Lueck, Special Collections & Archives Student Assistant.
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