Vivian Yeiser Laramore

Vivian Yeiser Laramore (born Vivian K. Yeiser, 1892 – 1975) was Florida's second Poet Laureate from 1931–1975.[1] After her second marriage, she used the name Vivian Laramore Rader. She was a teacher of poetry and created the Laramore-Rader Poetry Group from her home in Miami, Florida. She is the first and only woman Poet Laureate of Florida.[2]

Vivian Yeiser Laramore
Poet
BornNovember 16, 1892
Saint Louis, Missouri
DiedDecember 21, 1975
Miami, Florida
OccupationPoet
Spouse(s)Robert Eugene Laramore (1912–1936)
Paul C. Rader (1946–1975)

Biography

Early life

Vivian K. Yeiser was born in Saint Louis, Missouri on November 16, 1892. She was the daughter of William and Carrie Blaine Yeiser. Her father worked in Dr. McRae's Drug Store in Sanford, Florida. She had a half-brother from her father's first marriage. The family moved to Jacksonville when she was a child to open the Tropical Bottling Company.[1]

In high school, Vivian Yeiser was editor of The Oracle, Duval High School's literary magazine. She published her first poems in this magazine including "Four American Poets" and "The Marshes of the Saint John's."[1]

Marriage

In April 1912, Vivian Yeiser married Robert Eugene Laramore, a traveling salesman. Laramore moved to Miami, Florida in 1916 to follow the Florida Land Boom, and Vivian followed him in 1920. She lived in Miami for the rest of her life.[1]

In 1936, Robert Laramore died. In 1946, she met Paul C. Rader, a civil engineer in Miami.[1] They married on September 3, 1946 in Henderson, North Carolina.[3]

Death and afterward

Laramore died in 1975 in Miami at age 83.[4]

Poetry career

After moving to Miami in 1920, Laramore's poetry career began to take off. She published over 50 poems in 13 magazines from 1920–1923, including the Ladies' Home Journal, Woman's World and Contemporary Verse. She published her first collection of poetry, called Poems, in 1924. Her second collection, Green Acres, was published in 1926.[1]

She had a strong collaboration with her neighbor Mana-Zucca, starting when the composer set Laramore's poem "My Florida" to music. She also worked with Olive Dungan Pullen.[1]

In 1930, she began holding weekly meetings at her home, called the Laramore Poetry Group. One of the first speakers was Charles Torrey Simpson. These weekly meetings continued until and after her death.[1] She taught poetry at her home until her death.[5]

Laramore was appointed Poet Laureate of Florida by Governor Doyle E. Carlton in 1931.[6]

She was a member of the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers and past-president of the Miami branch of the National League of American Pen Women.[5]

After her appointment to Poet Laureate, she began publishing in the Miami Daily News every Sunday. Her column, Miami Muse, featured over 780 local poets for over 15 years.[1]

After the death of her husband Robert Laramore in 1936, Vivian was invited by Rollins College Vice-President Dr. Grover to teach a poetry class in Blowing Rock, North Carolina. She was then invited to teach at the Huckleberry Mountain Artist's Colony, where she taught every summer until 1955.[1]

At this point in her life, she met Hannah Kahn and they became close personal friends.[1]

Style

She created the "quatern" form of poetry, a variation of the Kyrielle. This is a sixteen-line poem composed of four quatrain stanzas, where the first line of stanza 1 is repeated in each quatrain: the second line of stanza 2, the third line of stanza 3, and the fourth line of stanza 4.[7]

Laramore preferred contemporary poetry and disliked reading prose. She named Edna St. Vincent Millay, Sara Teasdale, Robert Frost, and Robinson Jeffers as poets she liked to read.[8] Robert Frost said of her, "To me Florida will always be the poetry of Vivian Laramore Rader."[5]

Published works

Poems
  • Green Acres (1926)[9]
  • Flamingo (1932)[10]
  • Florida Poets: being an anthology of poems published in the Miami Daily News" (1933)[11]
  • The technique of poetry, as taught by Vivian Yeiser Laramore (1938)[12]
  • Had Sappho written sonnets (1939)[13]
  • Poinciana poems (1953)[14]
  • Ode to Life and selected Poems (1967)[15]

Musical scores

  • "When you are near" (1925, with Blanche Crook)[16]
  • "Mango Moon" (1936, with Olive Dungan)[17]
  • "My Florida" (1937, with Mana-Zucca)[18]
  • "Tropic Sea Melody" (1949, with Olive Dungan)[19]

Honours, decorations, awards and distinctions
  • Poet Laureate of Florida (1931–1975)
  • Bishop Prize (1929)[8]

References/Notes and references
  1. "Vivian Laramore Rader". The Florida Book Review. Retrieved 2019-08-30.
  2. "Make Miami History Now". miamiherald.typepad.com. Retrieved 2019-08-30.
  3. Ancestry.com. North Carolina, Marriage Records, 1741–2011 [database on-line]. Provo, Utah, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2015.
  4. "Vivian Laramore Rader". Find a Grave. Retrieved 30 August 2019.
  5. Helen Stewart Knaus (Dec 9, 1957). "Poet still teaches continues writing, too: Vivid flowers". The Christian,Science Monitor.
  6. "Florida's Poet Laureate – Division of Cultural Affairs – Florida Department of State". dos.myflorida.com. Retrieved 2019-08-30.
  7. Finch, Annie; Varnes, Kathrine (2002). An exaltation of forms: contemporary poets celebrate the diversity of their art. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. pp. 392. ISBN 9780472097258. OCLC 49279902.
  8. "40,000 in U.S busy as poets, says laureate: Florida's woman versifier holds output far excels congressional record finds appreciation gains vivian laramore here for release of her 3d book". New York Herald Tribune. Oct 2, 1932.
  9. Laramore, Vivian Yeiser (1926). Green acres. New York: H. Vinal. OCLC 1697418.
  10. Laramore, Vivian Yeiser (1932). Flamingo,. New York: H. Harrison. OCLC 1036720680.
  11. Laramore, Vivian Yeiser (1933). Florida poets: being an anthology of poems published in the Miami Daily News. Miami Daily News. Miami, Florida. OCLC 12938717.
  12. Rader, Vivian Yeiser; Laramore, Vivian Yeiser; Blowing Rock School of English (Blowing Rock, N.C.) (1938). The technique of poetry: as taught by Vivian Yeiser Laramore. OCLC 43545438.
  13. Laramore, Vivian Yeiser (1941). Had Sappho written sonnets. Dallas, Tex.: Kaleidograph Press. OCLC 34163348.
  14. Laramore, Vivian Yeiser (1953). Poinciana poems,. Miami: Pandarius Press. OCLC 1691317.
  15. Laramore, Vivian Yeiser (1967). Ode to life & selected poems by Vivian Laramore Rader, Poet laureate of Florida. Miami: Hurricane House. OCLC 1690624.
  16. When you are near: song, 1925, OCLC 497308862, retrieved 2019-08-30
  17. Mango moon, Carl Fischer, 1936, OCLC 50922573, retrieved 2019-08-30
  18. My Florida: song : [op. 155], Cassel Music Pub. Co., 1937, OCLC 10732459, retrieved 2019-08-30
  19. Tropic sea melody, Galaxy, 1949, OCLC 11269927, retrieved 2019-08-30
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