[PW] trying to find a poem in California Eagle

[Dennis Lien]

At 03:45 PM 1/3/2008, you wrote:
>Joyce wrote:
> >
> > Dear Project Wombat,
> >
> > I just found out about your services, and I thank you for any insights
> > into the following source. I am an editor with a strict deadline, and
>the
> > author of an article cannot provide more than the following source
>from
> > the now defunct California Eagle.
> >
> > Kinloch, John. "Poem of Love and War and Death and Marv's Sweet Shop,"
> > California Eagle.
> >
> > This reference would date from the mid twentieth century.
> >
>
>A Google Books Search provides a little more information, but not much:
>
>
>The Great Black Way: L.A. in the 1940s and the Lost African-American
>Renaissance by R. J. Smith - History - 2006 - 320 pages
>
>Page 69
>In "A Pome of Love and War and Death and Marv's Sweet Shop," Kinloch
>assumed the voice of an aviation worker: You are. A young snot. Who
>don't know. ...
>
>
>
>Kerry


I looked at our copy of R.J. Smith's book to see he gave a date anywhere
for the poem (or "pome" as the title indeed has it), but he did not.
However, from context within the chapter in which it's quoted it's
apparently from the 1942-1944/5 period, while aircraft factories in
Los Angeles were running 24/7 shifts to keep up with war requirements
and were hiring African American among others to work them, even
though grudgingly.

According to:

http://rockcriticsarchives.com/interviews/rjsmith/rjsmith.html

the author is "a senior editor on LOS ANGELES MAGAZINE."  Possibly
if he could be contacted he might have a date of publication for
Kinloch's piece.

For what it's worth...

Dennis Lien / U of Minnesota Libraries // d-lien at umn.edu