Walter Clyde Curry

1887—1967
Born in Graycourt, South Carolina, poet and medieval scholar Walter Clyde Curry earned a BA at Wofford College and an MA and PhD at Stanford University. He was a founding member of the Fugitives, an influential literary group that first met around 1915 at Vanderbilt University. The group, which included poets Robert Penn Warren, Donald Davidson, and Allen Tate, has been seen as a predecessor to the New Criticism movement. They founded a literary magazine, The Fugitive (1922–1925), in which Curry published poems under the pen name Marpha.
 
Curry taught at Vanderbilt University for 40 years, and chaired the English department from 1941 until his retirement in 1955. He died in Nashville, and his papers are held at the Jean and Alexander Heard Library of Vanderbilt University.