RARE "Poet" Lee Anderson Hand Signed Sketch For Sale

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RARE "Poet" Lee Anderson Hand Signed Sketch:
$499.99

Up for sale a RARE! "Poet" Lee Anderson Hand Signed Sketch. 

ES-5795E

Granted, most poets are

not household names, especially compared with entertainers, sports figures,

musicians, authors, and others who have climbed to the top of their respective

fields. Poet Lee Anderson (1896-1972), long-time resident of York County is no

exception. Even though he has been as critically acclaimed as contemporaries

such as Robert Frost, Conrad Aiken and Marianne Moore, he is lesser known. This

is in part because of the nature of his work, very long poems that he spent

years rewriting, averaging 50 major revisions for each before submitting the

composition to his publisher. As Anderson pointed out in a 1968 Sunday Patriot

News article, only about seven or eight of the hundred or more poets

in America were able to support themselves with their poetry. He said the

profession choses you, that what you have to say must come out. The great

majority of poets have to spend time supporting themselves in other

occupations. To make a living the Andersons were actively involved in farming,

especially in the years immediately following their move to the small farm in

Springfield Township near Potosi in 1942. A Gazette and Daily ad

under “Livestock” in October 1943 reads: “TWELVE WEANED PIGS, Poland China;

also shoats for New Year’s butchering and young breeding stock. Turn off Trail

near Besser’s Cabins. Lee Anderson.” Another source of income was his print

shop, the Shrewsbury Press. The York County History Center Library/Archives has

a box of assorted Christmas cards published under his Leander brand; the

designs, some by local artists, probably date from the 1950s. Anderson also

traveled to serve as lecturer at colleges and universities as varied as the

University of California, Berkley; Frostburg, Maryland State College and Eau

Claire State College, Wisconsin, sometimes for an extended time. Lee Anderson

was born to a farming family near Saxton, a small community in Bedford County.

He is said to have attended the University of Pittsburgh on a scholarship, and

he joined the Navy during World War I. Recently married, he and second wife,

Helen, seem to have been living in New York when they took the advice of friend

and poet Robert Frost, who thought poets should live in the country. After

searching over several states, they found a beautiful spot with a fishing

stream in southern York County. The house, built in the late 1700s, needed

updated, but they settled right in, using oil lamps for three years. Anderson

passionately believed that poetry must be heard to be appreciated. He called

poetry “music for the ear.” Taking the premise further, around 1950 he started

a two-decade project of recording American and British poets reading their own

poetry. He began the undertaking on his own, donating copies of the tape

recordings to Yale and the Library of Congress. Yale eventually hired Anderson

as Research Associate and published them as the Yale Series of Recorded

Poets on long-playing records. He recorded over 150 poets in all,

including himself. Three of his major works, poems long and involved enough to

be called epic, were published in 1944 (Prevailing Winds), 1954 (The

Floating World) and 1960 (Nags Head). Comments from critics were

favorable, one naming him “One of the most original and exciting of modern

poets.” The fourth of his planned tetralogy, Bearstone, seems to

have been completed in manuscript form, in fact he read it when he was honored

at the Library of Congress in 1970, but I could find no evidence of its

publication. His shorter works are represented in various publications, such

as The Modern Library Anthology of Modern Verse, edited by Conrad

Aiken. A 1968 article estimated that he had written about 500 poems by age 72. Anderson

patterned his poems as symphonies, some of which were motivated by his York

County surroundings. He related that the third movement of Nags

Head, entitled “Potosi” is based on thoughts and images inspired by a

walk along the Potosi-Deer Creek road. Personally, Anderson was worried about

humankind destroying itself with “the bomb.” While making it clear to

interviewers that he was not a pacifist and was glad to have served during

World War I, some of his poems advocated banning guns and ammunition. He

prohibited hunting on the farm with posted notices there and in the newspapers.

On July 25, 1972 Lee Anderson died at his York County home, one week after his

76th birthday. A long

obituary/article in the York Daily Record describes him as a

“much loved and immensely respected gentle man,” who had been honored by the

York County commissioners for “bringing favorable attention to our county on

the part of many giants of the literary world,” and that he chose to live in

York County “because of its beauty.” He was survived by his wife and by a

daughter from a previous marriage, Mary Jane Anderson. Yale University holds

the original tapes of the poetry readings by the poets as well as Anderson’s

notes concerning the project. Washington University in St. Louis retains a

collection of Anderson’s personal papers, a connection that I have not yet

explored. The York County History Center has some original material, most of

which seem to have to do with his printing business, as well as some of his poetry

in book form. Helen Anderson moved to Florida after Lee’s death. Their farm

seems now to be part of Spring Valley Park, belonging to the York County park

system. Lee Anderson legacy remains, not only in the words he painstakingly put

together, much as a composer brings forth a symphony, but also in the

recordings he pioneered so that the voices of many poets are preserved for our

own and future generations. 

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