by George Longenecker
Arthur Wallace Peach (1886-1956), a native of Pawlet, VT, helped found The Poetry Society of Vermont and was its first president in 1947-1948. Our oldest poetry PSOV award is named for him. While Peach never achieved the literary acclaim of Robert Frost or Dorothy Canfield Fisher, he was instrumental not only as a founder of PSOV. His work as an editor preserved Vermont literature that might otherwise have been forgotten. He was a Norwich University English professor from 1913 until 1952, serving as chair of the English Department and football coach. He was an eclectic scholar and poet with a love of Vermont, its towns and its literature. Besides founding PSOV, he was founder of the 251 Club of Vermont. While PSOV has guided its members to poetry, the 251 club has guided people to each of Vermont’s cities and towns.
Dorothy Canfield Fisher and Arthur Wallace Peach participated in a study, The Vermont Commission on Country Life, sponsored by the Eugenics Survey. They co-authored a chapter in the resulting book Rural Vermont, “The Conservation of Vermont Traditions and Ideals,” and also helped publish Vermont Verse, an Anthology in 1931, an excellent compilation of Vermont poetry. The horror of eugenics has been thoroughly covered by Mercedes de Guardiola in her excellent 2023 book Vermont for the Vermonters: The History of Eugenics in the Green Mountain State. While Peach and Fisher should have known about the Vermont Eugenics Survey’s connection to The Vermont Commission on Country Life, there is no evidence of what they knew or that either supported eugenics or sterilization. Neither ever wrote anything supporting eugenics. Both of their works are certainly still deserving of recognition.
In 1932 Peach made his greatest contribution as editor of The Green Mountain Series, a four-volume collection of Vermont poetry, prose, folk songs and biographies. It’s considered a seminal work on early Vermont music and literature. Both The Green Mountain Series and Vermont Verse, an Anthology are still available in libraries.
Upon retiring from Norwich in 1952, he served as director of the Vermont Historical Society until his death in 1956, There he guided the journal Vermont History, which is still published.
He was honored in The Literature of Vermont, published in 1973 by University Press of New England. He joined Dorothy Canfield Fisher, Robert Frost, Ralph Nading Hill, Leland Kinsey, Frances Frost, Howard Frank Mosher and many others in this anthology covering 200 years of Vermont authors. The book includes Peach’s poem “Weasel in the Wall,” which was first published in PSOV’s anthology First Harvest in 1954.
Arthur Wallace Peach was a poet, editor, professor and historian. I’m glad to have followed in his remarkable footsteps as a poet and one of 24 presidents who, thanks to our members, have carried on the Poetry Society of Vermont for 78 years.
~ George Longenecker
Weasel in the Wall
Flames in the night, and thunder far,
Cities dustward reeling,
Fatal bloom of death across
The red skies stealing—
Out of the dust a mortal sighing,
Deep in the mist the children crying.
Is there a Word I must obey
Out of the jungle’s distant day,
Rising out of the ancient slime,
Ruling me in this later time?
Bright eyes of death that turn away,
The meaning in your eyes is clear:
I wish my fellowmen could see
Your sneer!
Bright eyes of death that stare at me
Suppose we set our fancy free:
What think I of you?
What think you of me?
Swift and clean is the death you deal,
Your lean strength blocking
All escape, and in the throat
Your white teeth locking.
Out of the past the quick Word comes
With no gainsaying—
And you at the ancient call
Obeying.
~ Arthur Wallace Peach