"The cats are pleased":
Discovering Helen Adam Through the Archives
Helen Adam deserves a seat in the literary canon
Like many women poets associated with the Beat Generation, Helen Adam (1909-1993) was largely marginalized due to her gender. Adam was a poet, artist, and playwright whose work focused on the supernatural, women’s bodily autonomy, and race discrimination. All of these were, unfortunately, not extensively studied by academics until after her death. Even though Adam’s work is rarely mentioned among other Beat poets, her focus on the supernatural, women's rights, and race discrimination might invite a new generation of readers and scholars to be interested in her poetry. Therefore Helen Adam deserves he own spot in the literary canon since her work challenges Western traditions and her areas of interest were before her time. Her poems, “Counting Out Rhyme” and “Miss. Laura" both show how Adam was ahead of her time and would grasp a new generation of readers and scholars, gaining her a seat in the literary canon.
Helen and Pat Adam, "Where Are The Snows," San Francisco collage, 1950s–1964. Credit: James A. Ulrich.
Alison Fraser and Kristin Prevallet's Recovery of Adam
Two academic scholars who have done extensive research on Adam are Alison Fraser and Kristin Prevallet. Kristin Prevallet who has done the most research on Adam and is considered an Adam expert, uses her academic research to argue that Helen Adam deserves to be a part of the literary canon. In recent email correspondence, Prevallet revealed that she discover Adam through the archives. She wrote,
“Who on earth is Helen Adam? I did not hear about her until the day she died. September 19, 1993. People were talking about her in the halls of SUNY Buffalo where I was in graduate school. [I…] asked asked Robert Bertholf, the curator, who she was. Reluctantly[...] he shook his head and said, “Follow me.” He led me to the spot where her uncatalogued archive was being stored. He told me to poke around if I wanted to. Inside a large box stuffed full of a random mess, I spotted a scrapbook called “Black Magic.” I opened it. It was a collection of all sorts of weird images of specters and monsters cut out from occult magazines and women's fashion magazines.”
The box labeled “Black Magic,” was a box filled to the brim with a collection of Helen Adam’s past. Prevallet explains that once she discovered Adam’s work she was hit with an “archive fever” and she had to learn more about Adam. As the email went on Prevallet wrote about how in “15 years [...she...] catalogued her entire archive, written several conference papers about her, edited a collection of her works, made a soundtrack for her film, and recited her ballads at my poetry readings.” The past fifteen years of Prevallet’s life show how important the archives are and if she didn’t discover a book labeled “Black Magic” she never would have spent so much of her life dedicating it to Adam. Without archives, the last fifteen years of Prevallet’s life would have been extremely different.
Alison Fraser discovered Adam by taking a twentieth-century American poetry class during her undergrad. In this class, Fraser recalls watching the documentary, Poetry in Motion, which Adam is in and she instantly grabbed Fraser’s attention. After her undergrad and graduate years, Fraser was completing her P.H.D. at Buffalo when the curator told her Adam’s archive that Prevallet cataloged was there. Once Fraser discovered this she began studying Adam immensely because of her interest in Adam’s feminist themes. Without the archives and Prevallet, Fraser probably wouldn’t have rediscovered Adam while completing her P.H.D. and she would have never completed her scholarly work about her. The archives are an important place that helps preserve writers, artists, poets, and playwrights long after they have passed. If we didn’t have the archives we wouldn’t know or have so much knowledge about other literary canons. But if Prevallet never discovered the box labeled, “Black Magic” in the archives then the rest of the world most likely wouldn’t have discovered Adam.
In Sing Doun the Mune: Ballads and a Ballad-Essay, a book of ballads written by Helen Adam. Prevallet shares with readers an introduction to Helen Adam’s life before readers can read Adam’s ballads. In this introduction, Prevallet explains how Adam was a child prodigy and how she moved from Scottland to San Franciso, CA. Prevallet also explains how “Adam was not accepted into the literary canon [...] she rests now between the cracks: too weird for the formalists and too conventional for the avant-garde” (xii-xiii). After this statement Prevallet makes a compelling argument on why Adam deserves to be a part of the literary canon by explaining the history of the ballad and“the tradition that processed Adam was the Romantic or Supernatural tradition [which are] Scottish Ballads” (xiii). According to Prevallet, “Adam’s ballads praise a kind of love that is lawless, anarchic, and boundless [...] and consequently when society (or some other outside force) steps in and tries to impose morality or rationality, murder, and mayhem ensue” (xv). She goes on by describing how Adam’s ballads were written in the Scottish dialect making them more difficult to understand but also beautiful. Through Prevallet’s argument, readers understand how Adam’s “voice [is] out of time, and the ballad tradition that she passes down through us continues to cast the spell of narratives that tingle up and down our spines” (xx). All in all, due to Adam’s unique voice and avant-garde ideas for her time, she deserves a seat in the literary canon.
“Who on earth is Helen Adam? I did not hear about her until the day she died. September 19, 1993. People were talking about her in the halls of SUNY Buffalo where I was in graduate school. [I…] asked asked Robert Bertholf, the curator, who she was. Reluctantly[...] he shook his head and said, “Follow me.” He led me to the spot where her uncatalogued archive was being stored. He told me to poke around if I wanted to. Inside a large box stuffed full of a random mess, I spotted a scrapbook called “Black Magic.” I opened it. It was a collection of all sorts of weird images of specters and monsters cut out from occult magazines and women's fashion magazines.”
The box labeled “Black Magic,” was a box filled to the brim with a collection of Helen Adam’s past. Prevallet explains that once she discovered Adam’s work she was hit with an “archive fever” and she had to learn more about Adam. As the email went on Prevallet wrote about how in “15 years [...she...] catalogued her entire archive, written several conference papers about her, edited a collection of her works, made a soundtrack for her film, and recited her ballads at my poetry readings.” The past fifteen years of Prevallet’s life show how important the archives are and if she didn’t discover a book labeled “Black Magic” she never would have spent so much of her life dedicating it to Adam. Without archives, the last fifteen years of Prevallet’s life would have been extremely different.
Alison Fraser discovered Adam by taking a twentieth-century American poetry class during her undergrad. In this class, Fraser recalls watching the documentary, Poetry in Motion, which Adam is in and she instantly grabbed Fraser’s attention. After her undergrad and graduate years, Fraser was completing her P.H.D. at Buffalo when the curator told her Adam’s archive that Prevallet cataloged was there. Once Fraser discovered this she began studying Adam immensely because of her interest in Adam’s feminist themes. Without the archives and Prevallet, Fraser probably wouldn’t have rediscovered Adam while completing her P.H.D. and she would have never completed her scholarly work about her. The archives are an important place that helps preserve writers, artists, poets, and playwrights long after they have passed. If we didn’t have the archives we wouldn’t know or have so much knowledge about other literary canons. But if Prevallet never discovered the box labeled, “Black Magic” in the archives then the rest of the world most likely wouldn’t have discovered Adam.
In Sing Doun the Mune: Ballads and a Ballad-Essay, a book of ballads written by Helen Adam. Prevallet shares with readers an introduction to Helen Adam’s life before readers can read Adam’s ballads. In this introduction, Prevallet explains how Adam was a child prodigy and how she moved from Scottland to San Franciso, CA. Prevallet also explains how “Adam was not accepted into the literary canon [...] she rests now between the cracks: too weird for the formalists and too conventional for the avant-garde” (xii-xiii). After this statement Prevallet makes a compelling argument on why Adam deserves to be a part of the literary canon by explaining the history of the ballad and“the tradition that processed Adam was the Romantic or Supernatural tradition [which are] Scottish Ballads” (xiii). According to Prevallet, “Adam’s ballads praise a kind of love that is lawless, anarchic, and boundless [...] and consequently when society (or some other outside force) steps in and tries to impose morality or rationality, murder, and mayhem ensue” (xv). She goes on by describing how Adam’s ballads were written in the Scottish dialect making them more difficult to understand but also beautiful. Through Prevallet’s argument, readers understand how Adam’s “voice [is] out of time, and the ballad tradition that she passes down through us continues to cast the spell of narratives that tingle up and down our spines” (xx). All in all, due to Adam’s unique voice and avant-garde ideas for her time, she deserves a seat in the literary canon.
"As a re-constructor of this extraordinary person’s life, the only evidence I have of [Adam's] existence is in what she unintentionally left behind, and what those closest to her remember of her. " - Kristin Prevallet
Discovering Adam as an Undergraduate Student
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I first discovered Helen Adam as an undergraduate student at Georgia State University. Like Alison Fraser, I was taking a twentieth-century American poetry class, and my professor, Dr. Sturm played a clip of her from YouTube and I was instantly captivated by Adam’s character. Later on, I was allowed to learn and study more about Adam so I went to the Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library at Emory University in Atlanta, GA. Here I was able to request everything they had on Adam, including books, plays, and broad views of her poems. In several of the pieces I looked at, Adam had also touched herself because either at the beginning or end of the piece, I would see her signature. The act of seeing her signature instantly made me feel more connected to her. Once I saw her signature the wall between me and Adam melted away and I felt like I knew her and somehow I felt as if I understood her work more. At the Rose Library, I looked at several pieces of Adam’s work but the two that stood out to me the most were poems titled, “Counting Out Rhyme” and “Miss. Laura.”
“Counting Out Rhyme,” is a poem that Fraser mentions in her scholarly work. The poem tells the story of seven sisters who all get married. Throughout this poem, the youngest sister examines each of the husbands and decides to remain single and live with her cats. By choosing to remain single she can enjoy her life “instead of taking care of a cruel, drunk, and greedy man at the cost of her independence” (4). At the end of the poem, the audience learns that the woman lives a life “lived as light-hearted as the sea-breezes” (4). By choosing to not marry she regains her power and is rewarded with a peaceful life with her cats. In this poem, the cats represent a woman’s ability to choose a life without men, which mirrors Adam’s life. According to Fraser, Adam “never married, [instead she opted] to live with her sister, mother, and their many cats” (4). For Adam, cats represented much more than a furry life companion, for her, they represented freedom in her own life and her work. Throughout her collages and poems, you will see several images of cats, reminding women that they have their own choice and power, to do whatever they please outside of the realm of men. The poem, “Counting Out Rhyme” departs from the Beat Generation aesthetics because it focuses on the struggles of a woman and a woman’s choice. Therefore again, Adam was ahead of her time in the topics she wrote and created art about. But today, several young women have chosen to remain single and not get married. Therefore Adam’s poetry and art about cats and them representing a woman’s choice would resonate with generations of women, which again is why Helen Adam deserves a spot in the literary canon. Finally the poem, “Miss. Laura,” by Helen Adam is about a romantic relationship between a Black man and a White woman, Miss. Laura. The poem was published in 1967 and a biracial relationship was not accepted by society during this time. The first part of the poem shows the beautiful loving and caring relationship between the man and Miss. Laura had together. But the second part of the poem takes a turn when the “white man came running in pacts” (lines 31-32). As soon as Miss. Laura hears the White men she screams and says, “'Black boy forced me to his savage bed. Forced Miss Laura to his jungle bed'” (34-35). Even though Miss. Laura loves the Black man she goes against him to protect herself from the harshness and judgment of being with him. To protect herself she claims that the man raped her and even uses the “word” jungle, which has severely racist connotations. Adam uses the poem, to show how White women constantly victimized themselves, which is an extremely nuanced stance for 1967 since only in recent years have people been calling out White woman for playing the victim and lying by saying a Black man raped them when in reality they consensually dated one another. During 1967, biracial relationships were far from accepted. It was so not widely accepted there were only “one hundred copies printed [...] for friends of the poet and the press.” Adam likely did this because she understood the nuanced comment she was making in her poetry would be taken poorly by the public or they would not understand the comment she was trying to make. All in all, today’s reader would still find “Miss. Laura” relevant since White women victimize themselves especially when Black men are involved. |
Helen and Pat Adam, "Lovelier," San Francisco collage, 1950s–1964. Credit: James A. Ulrich.
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Helen Adam, San Francisco, ca. 1955. Photographer unknown. Credit: The Poetry Collection of the University Libraries, University at Buffalo, The State University of New York.
