John Martin Finlay
John Martin Finlay (January 24, 1941 – February 17, 1991) was an American poet and writer of essays, reviews, fiction, letters, and diaries.
Enterprise to him meant only the dull, hard life of farm chores, like milking cows or driving the tractor in the Alabama sun.
Annie Laurie Cullens, an old family fiend, observed Finlay's bright mind and precocious interest in his grandmother's library.
She gave John books, and he sat at the kitchen table while she and Uncle Waldo debated the merits of Eisenhower vs. Stevenson, atheism vs. theism, or argued over the latest novels reviewed in the Sunday Times.
Back home in Enterprise, when Finlay drove the rusty tractor under the high, July sun, he might steady a copy of Shakespeare on the seat.
Hudson Strode, an English professor at the university, became an influential part of Finlay academic and personal life.
He was inspired to do this after reading an article, "Classicism and the Modern Poet,'' written by English professor—and former student of Yvor Winters—Donald E. Stanford.
They had four small children and she went home to live with her mother in Ozark [Alabama] in the house of the poem ‘The Wide Porch.’ I remember John looking his records up at the hospital.
While continuing his coursework and teaching obligations Finlay began working on his dissertation topic, the intellectual theism of Yvor Winter, under the guidance of Stanford.
[12] While at LSU, Finlay met David Middleton (later his editor and literary executor), Lindon Stall, and Wyatt Prunty.
His strong publications in prestigious journals out of California, New York, England, and the South, established him as a serious writer among his contemporaries.
[12] Except for occasional teaching stints at Enterprise Junior College and helping out on the farm, Finlay engaged in writing, poetry, and scholarship.
Within months of returning home, he began studying Plato and taught himself Italian grammar in order to read Dante.
Goodman estimates that Finlay produced between eighty and ninety percent of his important work, saying "in a critical and creative fury, he wrote a spate of profound essays and poems."
While in Enterprise, Finlay typically wrote between ten and twelve hours at a time, staying up all night and sleeping during the day.
the smell of salt, of fish, of rain, of pines and magnolias in the warm air, images of moonlight, and of waves falling on beaches of the Gulf or the Adriatic, Odysseus, Socrates, [and] Athena.
In 1988, Bowers and Dick Davis invited Finlay to read his poetry at the University of Santa Barbara, California.
O God of love and power, hold still my heart When death, that ancient awful fact appears; Preserve my mind from all deranging fears, And let me offer up my reason free
Because he wrote five or six major poems and twenty or more others close to this level, he ranks certainly among the first five or six poets of the American South, and likewise of the post-World War II generation.
These papers contain the diaries, essays, poems, published books and chapbooks (including copies with late authorial corrections), notes and drafts, book reviews both by and about Finlay, secondary criticism, miscellaneous items, Finlay family letters, and correspondence between Finlay and Robert L. Barth, Edgar Bowers, Dick Davis, Andrew Lytle, David Middleton, Lindon Stall, Donald E. Stanford, Lewis P. Simpson, Clive Wilmer, Janet Lewis Winters, and others.
