Glenn Stemmons Coffield (June 5, 1917 – June 16, 1981) was an American poet and

conscientious objector A conscientious objector (often shortened to conchie) is an "individual who has claimed the right to refuse to perform military service" on the grounds of freedom of thought, conscience, or religion. The term has also been extended to object ...

. He was born in

Prescott, Arizona Prescott ( ) is a city in Yavapai County, Arizona, United States. According to the 2020 Census, the city's population was 45,827. The city is the county seat of Yavapai County. In 1864, Prescott was designated as the capital of the Arizona T ...

, and received a B.S. degree in education from Central Missouri State Teachers College in 1940. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, he served in

Civilian Public Service The Civilian Public Service (CPS) was a program of the United States government that provided conscientious objectors with an alternative to military service during World War II. From 1941 to 1947, nearly 12,000 draftees, willing to serve their ...

(CPS) Camp #7 in Magnolia, Arkansas, and then was transferred to the

Camp Angel Camp Angel was Civilian Public Service (CPS) camp number 56, located from 1942 to 1945 near Waldport and the coast in the Siuslaw National Forest and Lincoln County, in western Oregon. It was one of many CPS camps across the United States where c ...

CPS camp near

Waldport, Oregon Waldport is a city in Lincoln County, Oregon, United States. The population was 2,033 at the 2010 census. The city is located on the Alsea River and Alsea Bay, south of Newport and north of Yachats. History Settlement of Waldport began in ...

in 1942. Coffield is sometimes called Oregon's first hippie. The artist

Kemper Nomland Kemper Nomland Jr. (May 8, 1919 - December 25, 2009) was a modernist architect in Los Angeles, California and part of a father-son architectural team with his father Kemper Nomland, Sr. He was also a painter and printer of poetry and arts publica ...

was at Camp Angel, and attempted to capture Coffield's creativity in a painting donated to the

Lewis and Clark College Lewis & Clark College is a private liberal arts college in Portland, Oregon. Originally chartered in 1867 as the Albany Collegiate Institute in Albany, Oregon, the college was relocated to Portland in 1938 and in 1942 adopted the name Lewis & C ...

Portland, Oregon Portland (, ) is a port city in the Pacific Northwest and the largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Situated at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers, Portland is the county seat of Multnomah County, the most populous co ...

. Coffield's first collection of poems ''Ultimatum'' (1943) was a one-man operation since he was author, typist, designer and illustrator, as with most of his subsequent works. His anthology ''Horned Moon'' was published by Everson's

Untide Press The Untide Press, founded in 1943, attempted to bring poetry to the public in an inexpensive but attractive format. It was founded by writer William Everson, architect and printer Kemper Nomland, actor Kermit Sheets and editor / librarian William ...

in 1944. In the poem ''Indivisible'' he describes the world as more loosely strung than a nation, feeling pain more slowly "as when wild horses stampede on broken hooves". Some of his poems were also published in the Untide Press magazine ''Illiterati''. After the war Coffield did some acting in San Francisco with a repertory called ''The Interplayers'' led by

Kermit Sheets Louis Kermit Sheets (14 August 1915 – 6 April 2006) was an actor, director, playwright and an artistic partner with poet James Broughton. World War II During World War II, Sheets served as a conscientious objector for four years, first in Civili ...

. From 1947–1954 he ran the Grundtvig Folk School at Eagle Creek in the

Mount Hood Mount Hood is a potentially active stratovolcano in the Cascade Volcanic Arc. It was formed by a subduction zone on the Pacific coast and rests in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is located about east-southeast of Portlan ...

wilderness in Oregon, where he published numerous small poetry journals and newsletters. In the 1960s Coffield moved back to San Francisco, where he was severely injured in a hit and run accident. Coffield spent the rest of his life in Missouri, and died in Mt. Vernon.

Selected bibliography

* ''Songs for the winds'' 1941 – 74 pages * ''Ultimatum: (from the unforgettable)'' Untide Press – 1943 – 10 pages * ''The horned moon'' 1944 – 29 pages * ''A pewee's note: (poems: 1944)'' 1946 – 16 pages * ''The modern problem'' 1946 – 14 pages * ''Poetics (a summary)'' 1946 – 8 pages * ''The horse of summer'' 1946 – 26 pages * ''We think too much'' 1948 – 22 pages * ''The citadel (of the mind)'' 1948 – 14 pages * ''The waldport dilemma: (a second look)'' 1948 – 12 pages * ''The Grundtvig Folk School in Oregon: a creative experiment in education'' Free schools – 1949 – 8 pages * ''The night is where you fly: poems'' 1949 – 35 pages * ''Selected poems (1943–1950)'' 1951 – 56 pages * ''The silent waters'' 1950 – 53 pages * ''Three songs'' Rounce & Coffin Club – 1951 – 12 pages * ''Love and reason Reason'' – 1953 – 44 pages * ''Silence and slow time (a snowscape): a poem for Christmas'' 1953 – 8 pages * ''Northwest poems'' 1954 – 36 pages * ''Criteria for poetry'' 1954 – 45 pages * ''The old man who liked cats: (or Abra-Ki-Dabra-Ki-Boodle-Ki-Zam)'' 1954 – 14 pages * ''Northwest prints'' 1954 – 10 pages * ''Homage to King Lear: (a limerick sequence in five acts)'' 1954 – 34 pages * ''The metaphysics of wrong numbers'' 1955 – 22 pages * ''Rational power'' 1955 – 39 pages * ''Christmas tide, 1954–1955'' 1955 – 4 pages * ''New age anthology of poetry'' 1955 – 104 pages * ''Tea leaves and transit lines: poems of prophecy and technic'' 1956 – 14 pages * ''Sea climate and other poems'' 1956 – 14 pages * ''The Grundtvig experiment'' Free schools – 1957 – 58 pages * ''The Grundtvig poems'' 1957 * ''The bridge editorials'' 1957 – 36 pages * ''Bridge anthology'' 1957 – 22 pages * ''Twelve selected poems'' 1958 – 12 pages * ''Bay area poems'' 1958 – 8 pages * ''Glenn Stemmons Coffield's art coloring book'' 1958 – 24 pages * ''Definition of God, and other poems'' 1960 – 12 pages * ''Creative method: technical essays'' 1960 – 110 pages * ''Thirty poems: The return and other poems'' 1963 – 37 pages * ''Poetry workshop: (thirty exercises in poetics)'' 1963 – 30 pages * ''The merry-go-round: (poems)'' 1969 – 32 pages * ''Thinking: (poems)'' 1975 – 30 pages

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Coffield, Glenn Stemmons 1917 births 1981 deaths 20th-century American poets American conscientious objectors Members of the Civilian Public Service People from Prescott, Arizona Poets from Oregon