Wilma Dykeman's poetry
originally published in Bluets, May, 1938
the award-winning student magazine
of Biltmore College and
quoted in Solon Bryan's newspaper column,
The Highway House |
Personal History
Three things there are that I can't comprehend:
Men, fractions, and a treacherous friend.
Three things there be that I'll never do"
Eat carrots, swear, and marry you.
Three things there aren't that I wish might be:
More beauty, more money, your love for me.
To My Mother
To a person who's strong throughout his days
The world for long has heaped up praise;
But here's to a woman who's strong, yet kind,
Idealistic without being blind,
Who can lead and push and sympathize
Flaunt faith in the world's sarcastic eyes;
Who neither writes nor paints nor sings.
And yet sees beauty in simple things.
Here's to a woman the world does not know,
And yet without her small steady glow
The world would much less beauty have known,
In a wife, a daughter, and a mother -- my own.
Wilma Dykeman
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While she was a sophomore at Biltmore College, the junior college which became the
parent school of UNCA, Wilma Dykeman's verse was impressive enough to attract the
attention of Solon Bryan, director of the Piedmont Lyceum Bureau. The Piedmont
Bureau offered concerts, festivals, artists, lectures, and chataugua programs throughout
the South in towns, cities, and in colleges and high schools. In his newspaper column,
"The Highway House," Bryan says, "I find it such a pleasure" to
include several poems by undergraduate Dykeman. Miss Dykeman went on to become the
well-known author of The French Broad and many other highly acclaimed
fiction and non-fiction works
about the people and places of her native Appalachian mountains.
Collections:
University Archives, Student Publications,
Bluets, 1929-1960
[BLUETS 1937, 1938] ; also
Solon H. Bryan Collection
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