Who Lives in the Ivory Tower?

Thomas McGrath was always ambivalent about institutions, and his relationship with academia was no exception. In 1939, he graduated from the University of North Dakota, where for the first time he seriously read poetry, including the work of Hart Crane and T.S. Eliot. The recipient of a Rhodes Scholarship, he deferred study abroad and instead studied with the legendary literary critic Cleanth Brooks at Louisiana State University. At the time, Brooks was one of the leaders of the American New Critics, who argued for a formalist approach to literary study. For the New Critics, a poem was to be understood in isolation from the intention of its author and from the influences of its historical context.

The New Critical emphasis on irony and paradox in poetry shaped the young writer’s style, but the formalist approach clashed with his sense of political responsibility. Consequently, though McGrath and Brooks had classes together and shared in an ongoing literary discussion at the Roosevelt Tavern near campus, the two were “at opposite ends on things,” as McGrath later recalled. “I really loved Brooks. He was a gentle type, very sweet…. But I think now that I might have gotten a great deal more from Brooks if I hadn’t been as politically oriented as I was, or if I had been politically more mature. If I wouldn’t have felt as strong a need to assert or maintain my position, my attitude, I could have…gotten more from Brooks. I’m sure I would have.”

While under Brooks's tutelage, McGrath also formed an important connection with fellow LSU student Alan Swallow. Swallow taught himself the printing trade and began producing pamphlets and small books from his garage; from that humble D.I.Y. start, the Swallow Press would eventually go on to become one of the most influential small presses in the country. McGrath's early works were among the very first Swallow publications; his 1940 collection entitled First Manifesto is Swallow Pamphlets #1.

After serving in WWII and studying for a year at Oxford, McGrath found himself at the center of another energetic intellectual community, centered at Los Angeles State College (now California State University, Los Angeles). There, he took on the role once similar to the one played by Brooks, as a faculty member anchoring an informal group of emergent literary thinkers. Among them were Gene Frumkin and Mel Weisburd, who in the late 1950s founded and edited the influential California literary journal Coastlines. Today, the English Department awards a poetry prize in the name of Henri Coulette, another McGrath student, who went on to join the English faculty. McGrath contributed to and was the faculty adviser for some of the first issues of Statement Magazine, which is still published annually today.

McGrath was fired by LASC after his 1953 testimony before a House UnAmerican Activities Committee hearing. The firing provoked fury among his students, who held protests, formed an organization to defend academic freedom, and even published a small volume of poetry entitled Witness to the Times! in McGrath’s honor. Despite his termination, McGrath’s commitment to his Los Angeles intellectual community continued in new forms, such as recurring Wednesday night poetry meetings at his home (members of the group were referred to as “The Marsh Street Irregulars”) and the founding of an alternative learning community called the Sequoia School.