John Martin Finlay (January 24, 1941 – February 17, 1991) was an American poet and writer of essays, reviews, fiction, letters, and diaries.
Finlay is best known for his posthumously published poetry collection, Mind and Blood: The Collected Poems of John Finlay.
Life
Early years
John Finlay was born in Ozark, Alabama. One of five children, Finlay grew up on a peanut and dairy farm owned by his parents, Tom Coston Finlay and Jean Sorrell Finlay, near Enterprise, Alabama. Jean Finlay belonged to the established gentry in Ozark; her father, Martin Sorrell, was a lawyer. According to Finlay biographer Jeffrey Goodman: "John Finlay never liked farming. Enterprise to him meant only the dull, hard life of farm chores, like milking cows or driving the tractor in the Alabama sun. Weekends in Ozark, however, meant his grandmother's library of classics and sweet hours in her leisurely and educated company. Annie Laurie Cullens, an old family fiend, observed Finlay's bright mind and precocious interest in his grandmother's library. Miss Cullens was a newspaper poet with connections to Mencken's wife and the cultural set in Montgomery. She gave John books, and he sat at the kitchen table while she and Uncle Waldo debated the merits of Eisenhower vs. Stevenson, atheism vs. theism, or argued over the latest novels reviewed in the Sunday Times. Back home in Enterprise, when Finlay drove the rusty tractor under the high, July sun, he might steady a copy of Shakespeare on the seat. On the pokey yellow school bus, he read. He named the cows he brought home from pasture after Greek gods and goddesses. By the age of fifteen, he was reading Wordworth's collected poems."Finlay attended Enterprise High School, where he participated in theater and played a leading role in Thornton Wilder's play Our Town. He was vice-president of his senior class, class orator, and voted "most scholarly."
Academic years
In 1959, Finlay enrolled at the University of Alabama. Hudson Strode, an English professor at the university, became an influential part of Finlay academic and personal life. Strode and his wife frequently invited Finlay to dinner and included him on some of their travels in the American South. During one trip to Mississippi, Strode introduced Finlay to John Crowe Ransom. In 1962, Finlay was named to the university's G.E. Academic College Bowl team and was flown to New York for the broadcast.
In 1964, after graduating with a BA in English and a minor in Creative Writing, Finlay started his M.A. program in English at the University of Alabama with a full graduate assistantship. While at Alabama, he wrote poems for Comment, the campus literary magazine, and in 1965 served as its editor-in-chief. Finlay interviewed Eudora Welty for the magazine's Winter issue. He also met Allen Tate—whom Finlay had invited to speak at the university —and Andrew Lytle.
Finlay finished his M.A. program in 1966 and began to teach at Alabama College as an instructor of freshman and sophomore English. In 1989, he gave up his teaching post to pursue his doctorate work. He was inspired to do this after reading an article, "Classicism and the Modern Poet,'' written by English professor—and former student of Yvor Winters—Donald E. Stanford. He wrote to Stanford in November of 1969 requesting to study under him. In 1970, Finlay enrolled in the doctoral program under Stanford at Louisiana State University. After one year, Finlay dropped out and moved to Corfu, where a friend's family was building a hotel. Finlay then moved to Paris in December 1973. After several months in Paris, he ran out of money and had to borrow from his uncle to get home.
