[PW] Re: National Poetry Association

[Franco, Adrienne]

There is a serial record for "America Sings" in the Library of Congress catalog. 
Complete 245 title field is: America sings; annual anthology of college poetry.
National Poetry Association is in 110 field. LCCN is 46019722.  There's no 362 field, but 260 field, subfield c is 1944-    . (I think this reflects older cataloging policy; today 1944-   would probably be in 362).  I also found a record in redlightgreen, which lists beginning date as 1946.  In redlightgreen, a number of libraries are listed as owning this publication, e.g. SUNY Geneseo, City College (part of CUNY system), and Lehman College (part of CUNY system), etc.

This would seem to lend credence both to the organization, National Poetry Association, and to the publication America Sings. 

In LC catalog, there are 2 listings under National Poetry Association; one is National Poetry Association followed by note in parentheses (from old catalog).  There are also 2 titles listed under National Poetry Association (U.S.) for later publications in 1989 and 1994. These are probably the same organization.  I tried checking LC authority file for more information but it seems to be down at the moment.
cf. http://authorities.loc.gov/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?DB=local&PAGE=First

Bottom line -- evidence indicates this is a legitimate publication which is owned by a number of libraries.

Adrienne Franco / Iona College Libraries / New Rochelle, NY  10801


-----Original Message-----
From: project-wombat-bounces at lists.project-wombat.org on behalf of Meredith Dixon
Sent: Sun 5/7/2006 12:34 PM
To: list at project-wombat.org
Subject: [PW]  National Poetry Association

My father recently passed away, and I've inherited a pamphlet called "America
Sings", which is a 1946-47 anthology of the work of college students across the
country.  It was published by the National Poetry Association in Los Angeles, and
it contains a poem my father wrote in his freshman year of college.

My first thought upon seeing this was, "Oh, no; my  father must have fallen for
one of those vanity-press creative writing scams!  Evidently they go back a long
way."  And perhaps he did. 

But since it is a pamphlet rather than a glossy-looking book, and since the
publishers "thank the Instructors and Heads of the English Departments for their
excellent efforts in making the Anthologies possible."  I am wondering whether by
any chance it might really have been just what it says it is: a genuine anthology
of the best collegiate poems of 1946-47 (as opposed to any poem that was sent in).

I can't find anything about a National Poetry Association of the right age online,
though there are of course several vanity-press publishers with similar names and
there seems to be a genuine National Poetry Series launched in 1978 (though I
didn't look at it closely as it wasn't the right date).   MX Bookfinder lists
America Sings anthologies for the mid-1940's (my 1946-47 one says it is the fourth
such compilation) until mid-1955, but that's no help in determining whether or not
they are genuine.

It's probably vanity press, but if by any chance it isn't it would be very nice to
know otherwise.   Does anyone have more certain information about this National
Poetry Association?

--
Meredith Dixon <dixonm at pobox.com>
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