“Such Friends”: 100 Years Ago, March 22, 1920, First Congregational Church, Tacoma, Washington

Well in to his third American speaking tour, Irish poet William Butler Yeats, 54, is giving his second lecture in the state of Washington.

The Tacoma Daily Ledger, in addition to reporting the arrest of a top Seattle police officer for importing illegal booze from Canada, promotes Yeats’ talk by indicating he will discuss his experiences hypnotizing dogs and cows.

W B Yeats

Instead, Willie talks about his fellow founder of the Abbey Theatre, the late Irish playwright John Millington Synge, discusses the continuing achievements of the Abbey, and once again makes a plea for intimate theatre,

of the people, by the people, and for the people.”

The 400 or so attendees are delighted by the poet’s easy-going charm, particularly when Yeats follows his lecture by reading, as the paper reports the next day,

three whimsical little poems that delighted…The poet’s own personality was the dominant element in the lecture last night…He is an artist in feature, in dress and in gesture.”

“Such Friends”:  100 Years Ago… is the basis for the book, “Such Friends”:  The Literary 1920s, to be published by K. Donnelly Communications. For more information, email me at kaydee@gpysyteacher.com.

In 2020 I will be talking about writers’ salons in Ireland, England, France and America before and after the Great War in the University of Pittsburgh’s Osher Lifelong Learning program.

If you want to walk with me through Bloomsbury, you can download my audio walking tour, “Such Friends”: Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Group.

Manager as Muse, about Maxwell Perkins and his relationships with F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe, is available on Amazon in both print and Kindle versions.