Guide to the Sonnet Club Collection – Contents

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SERIES I.  RED SCRAPBOOK (1949 – 1969)

One (1) Box

Series Scope and Content Summary

This series contains a large red scrapbook.  The front cover of the scrapbook has come loose.  The scrapbook is in fair condition with the front cover loose and some of the pages fragile to the touch.  The scrapbook primarily contains newspaper clippings of club meetings and other club activities.  There are also meeting minutes and poems from club members.  There are also a couple of photographs one of them possibly Fay Frykland, the first club president.

– The California Federation of Chaparral Poets officially approved the Sonnet Club of Santa Cruz’s application to start a local Chaparral Poets branch on 27 November 1949.
– In November 1949 the president of the Sonnet Club was Mrs. Melville Frykland.
– The Sonnet Club officially changed its name to the “Santa Cruz Chapter, California Federation of Chaparral Poets” at its January 1950 meeting.  Officers were also elected at this meeting.
– The word ‘Chaparral’ is one of many musical names inherited from the music-speaking Spanish Californians.  It was applied to those low, thorny shrubs that originally covered the hills and valleys of California.  The poets of California have adopted the name ‘Chaparral’ applying it to all writers and lovers of verse.  The club aims to encourage the study of poetry, writing of poetry, reading and marketing and appreciation of poetry, and to stimulate publication in the press and magazines and on radio programs and through other public platforms.
– List of charter members and officers for various years.
– Poems by the clubs’ members.
– Many articles about poetry contests held by the Santa Cruz Chapter.
– Obituary for one of the club’s members – Addie Littlefield Kleist – who was a resident of Santa Cruz since 1927, and an active member of the Santa Cruz Art League and an active exhibitor.  She was the founder of the Sonnet Club.  She died on 14 December 1953.  She bequeathed $100 to the chapter for future student poetry contests.  The chapter honored her request with creation of the Addie Kleist Annual Poetry Contest.
– One member of the Santa Cruz Chapter, Katherine E. Wallis, was an internationally known sculptor.  She published her first book of poems, “Chips from the Bloc,” in 1956.
– By April 1956 the club had published two anthologies of its members’ poems, “Seedling Verse” and “First the Blade.”
– The Scrapbook includes newsletters, clippings about the club, its contests, activities and various members from October 1949 (when it was still the Sonnet Club) to December 1969.

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SERIES II.  LOOSE ITEMS (1953 – 2008)

One (1) Folder

Series Scope and Content Summary

This series contains meeting programs and various correspondence related to the Sonnet Club.  Included in this material is a bequeath from Addie Kleist to be used to sponsor student poetry contests.  There was also a poem from a Vega Swift

TIGHT BELT

The dessert looked oh, so delicious
That I thought I’d try just a taste;
Then I just simply couldn’t be wasteful –
So I ended full of waist.

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1:X