The Birthplace Society meets Sunday. You’re invited
By Jennifer Smart, Assistant Director
The Wake Forest Historical Museum
The Wake Forest College Birthplace Society will hold this year’s annual meeting on Sunday, October 27th from 3 pm to 5 pm—and the public is invited to attend! This wonderful event serves as an opportunity for members of the Society (and anyone else who’s interested) to gather at the Wake Forest Historical Museum for an update on the museum’s operations, budget, and long-range plans—and there’s always something extra!
To make the day memorable, we always schedule a special program for our visitors to enjoy, and this year we have noted scholar, poet, and author Emily Herring Wilson, who will discuss her latest book, a memoir about poet A.R. Ammons (WFU ‘49), titled “When I Go Back to My Home Country”: A Remembrance of Archie Ammons.
For those not familiar with Ammons’ work, it’s well worth some attention. Archie Randolph Ammons was born in 1926 near Whiteville, North Carolina. He started writing poetry while serving aboard a U. S. Navy destroyer in the South Pacific during World War II, and then attended Wake Forest College here in the Town of Wake Forest. He went on to take jobs as an elementary school principal, a real estate salesman, an editor, and a business executive before his talent for poetry landed him a teaching position at Cornell University in 1964.
Ammons published nearly thirty collections of poetry, winning two National Book Awards, the Library of Congress’s Rebekah Johnson Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry, the National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry, and the Bollingen Prize. He also received the Poetry Society of America’s Robert Frost Medal and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Ammons died in 2001.
Emily Herring Wilson had a long and lasting friendship with Ammons. They met in 1972, when the famous poet returned to Wake Forest University to receive an honorary degree. Three years later, when Ammons left Cornell to accept a post as Wake Forest University’s poet-in-residence, his friendship with Wilson turned to something solid and lasting. In fact, the entire Wilson and Ammons families shared a close connection. Wilson’s husband, Dr. Edwin Wilson (WFU ‘43), had been one of Ammons’ teachers when the poet was a student at Wake Forest College here on the Original Campus.
In this way, Wilson’s memoir draws on decades of life experience as a friend and colleague of A.R. Ammons. As Wilson is also a professional poet, she has great insight into his character and work, and her own writing encompasses a variety of genres. She has written books of poetry, biography, and historical vignettes. Her titles include The Three Graces of Val-Kill, a biography of Eleanor Roosevelt, and No One Gardens Alone: A Life of Elizabeth Lawrence. Wilson has received the North Carolina Award for Literature, the Caldwell Award from the N.C. Humanities Council, and the 2017 Bookmarks Literary Achievement Award. The museum will stock copies of her work for a book signing the day of the event—and they make wonderful Christmas presents.
We hope to see you there!
(The Wake Forest Historical Museum, 919-556-2911, is at 414 North Main Street, Wake Forest. Admission is free. The museum is open from 10 to 12 and from 1:30 to 4:30 Tuesday through Friday, and from 2 to 5 on Sundays if there are volunteers to staff it.)
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