this<\/em> at the Watkinson.\u201d Brief research on Holland reinforced the fruitfulness of the latter.<\/p>\nIn 1933, the Great Depression stole Holland\u2019s senior year at Trinity College. Becoming a workingman prematurely, Holland entered a tanking American economy that summer. But Holland\u2019s fluency in German helped him secure several prestigious positions abroad. In 1937, when W.H. Auden published \u201cSpain,\u201d a poetic treatise on the Spanish Civil war, Holland established himself as the point person for Brown Brothers Harriman office in Berlin. Perhaps Holland, who then stood at the apex of his private sector ascent, did not find value in the poem like he did when donating an original copy to the Trinity class of \u201846.<\/p>\n
After working on projects in Germany, Netherlands, and the United States, the North Negros Sugar Company of Manila culled Holland in 1941. Shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Japan invaded Philippines, where Holland, his wife, and two young children lived. For three years they remained incarcerated at the Santo Tomas internment camp. Holland spent the next thirty-seven months reading and keeping an extensive diary.<\/p>\n
In the daily entries, Holland documents air raids and his day-to-day mindset.<\/p>\n
\u201cToday Lt. Shiragi said that we should kill all the dogs in the camp & serve them on the food line \u2013 I agree that the dogs should be killed \u2013 They are a menace to our health \u2013 But I do not relish eating these mangy mongrels \u2013 This shows while I may be very hungry, I am not yet starving \u2013 Otherwise I would make no such objection,\u201d writes Holland.<\/p>\n
Despite obvious struggles as a prisoner of war, Holland displays a poised and thoughtful demeanor throughout his diaries. He cites a range of books and modern poets who helped him cope, including Auden. \u201cAuden, Spencer, MacNeice, Stevens, E. E. Cummings & – in many poems T. S. Eliot \u2013 all apparently disdain us \u2013 Look at Eliot\u2019s \u201cWasteland,\u201d The same is true of Stein, Wolfe & Joyce in the novel \u2013 It is never necessary to be incomprehensible \u2013 And I detest poems composed of words put down for their musical effect & not for their meaning,\u201d writes Holland.<\/p>\n
While Holland criticized modern poets that wrote \u201cincomprehensible\u201d lines, Holland certainly viewed Auden\u2019s \u201cSpain\u201d as comprehensible. When the Japanese internment camp released Holland and his family in 1945, Trinity let Holland walk with the class of 1946. His first donation to Trinity was a copy of Auden\u2019s Spain. Since Auden wrote the poem about the Spanish Civil War, while addressing the grave byproducts of war, perhaps Holland drew many parallels between the poem and his own experience as a POW.<\/p>\n
Trinity hired Holland as a freshmen advisor in 1946. He transitioned into various fundraising positions and later became vice president at the college. In 1966, Hobart and William Smith named Holland president, but the school forced his resignation two years later. Fittingly Holland\u2019s early exit stems from an allegiance with Reverand Daniel Berrigan-a Vietnam war activist Holland invited to speak on campus. He finished his career at Wellesley College and retired from higher education in 1977.<\/p>\n
That Holland lived to tell his story is nothing short of a minor miracle. The Watkinson library assignment unearthed his seldom-shared story. Yet when Holland dedicated a poem on war and struggle to Trinity, the former administrator told his classmates something else.<\/p>\n
Holland lived a reader\u2019s life.<\/p>\n
The Auden poem and a typed replication of Holland\u2019s prison diaries can be found at the Watkinson Library.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
[Posted by Sean Flynn for ENG 812 Modern Poetry, Professor Rosen] Auden artifact unearths interesting connection between poets and their readers. \u201cThat is just what I think is wrong with modern poetry \u2013 The poets are not writing for the people, for a vast audience \u2013 They are writing for a small clique \u2013 And […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":122,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[20,13],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/rring\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/755"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/rring\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/rring\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/rring\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/122"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/rring\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=755"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/rring\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/755\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":760,"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/rring\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/755\/revisions\/760"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/rring\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/rring\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/rring\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"WHAuden-Spain(1)-1\"](\"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/rring\/files\/2016\/05\/WHAuden-Spain1-1.jpg\")
<\/a>\u201cThat is just what I think is wrong with modern poetry \u2013 The poets are not writing for the people, for a vast audience \u2013 They are writing for a small clique \u2013 And then the members of this small group interpret these poems to the public through books, articles and reviews,\u201d writes former Trinity College Vice President Albert E. Holland.<\/p>\n