The Poet's Shack
Oxford, Butler County, Ohio
Marker Inscription
"The Poet's Shack" "The Poet's Shack" was built as a writing studio for the prolific poet Percy MacKaye, who held the position of writer-in-residence at Miami University from 1920-1924. MacKaye requested a writing studio in the woods, a simple shack with a fire where faculty or students could gather to talk with the poet or hear his newest works. MacKaye's studio was built on Miami's lower campus – now known as Bishop Woods after first president Robert Hamilton Bishop – where Upham Hall stands today. Students called the structure "The Poet's Shack."
Erected by Ohio History Connection
The Story
Built as a rustic writing studio for poet Percy MacKaye during his years as writer-in-residence at Miami University from 1920 to 1924, 'The Poet's Shack' was a simple woodland cabin with a fire where students and faculty could gather to hear his newest works. It stood on the lower campus — now Bishop Woods — where Upham Hall rises today. Students affectionately named the little structure themselves.
Why it matters
It recalls an era when universities cultivated resident poets and the arts as a living presence on campus, shaping American literary and educational life.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
In the years just after the First World War, American colleges were rethinking what a university education should feel like. The 1920s brought a wave of confidence and cultural ambition to campuses, and administrators increasingly believed that students should not merely study literature and art but live alongside the people who made it. Bringing a working artist onto campus — a writer-in-residence — was part of that spirit.
Oxford, Ohio, was a fitting place for the experiment. A quiet college town in the rolling farm country of Butler County, it had grown up around Miami University, one of the oldest public universities in the state. By the early twentieth century the campus mixed red-brick tradition with the leafy woodland that gave the lower campus its character.
Into that setting came the idea of a poet who would not be shut away in an office but would work in the trees, within reach of anyone curious enough to wander by.
People & events
The poet was Percy MacKaye, who served as writer-in-residence at Miami University in the early 1920s. He was prolific and well known in his day as a dramatist and verse-maker, part of a family steeped in the American theater. Rather than a conventional study, he asked for something unusual: a simple shack in the woods, with a fire, where he could write.
The request was more than a whim. MacKaye wanted the studio to be a gathering place — somewhere faculty and students could drop in to talk with him or hear his newest work read aloud. A fire, a few chairs, and the hush of the trees turned writing from a private act into a shared one.
The students gave the little building its name themselves. They called it "The Poet's Shack," an affectionate, unpretentious title that tells you exactly how they felt about it. It stood on Miami's lower campus, the wooded ground later named Bishop Woods after the university's first president, Robert Hamilton Bishop.
Its place in the American story
The Poet's Shack is a small monument to a large idea: that a university should keep living artists in its midst, not just their books on its shelves. The writer-in-residence tradition, which took root at American colleges in the early twentieth century, helped shape how the country nurtures its writers to this day. Many campuses now host resident poets and novelists as a matter of course; a century ago it was a fresh and hopeful notion.
The shack also captures a distinctly American faith in the informal — the belief that the best learning can happen around a fire rather than behind a lectern. That a rough woodland cabin, and not a grand hall, became the memorable heart of a poet's years here says something about how creativity was understood.
That the building is gone and a classroom hall now stands where it once did only sharpens the point. Universities are always rebuilding themselves, and what endures is often the story rather than the structure.
If you visit
You'll find the site on Miami University's lower campus, in the wooded ground known as Bishop Woods, where Upham Hall now stands. The shack itself is long gone, so come expecting a place to imagine rather than a building to tour.
Take a moment among the trees. This is a walking campus, and the woods are still the kind of quiet, shaded ground where a poet might have wanted to work. Picture a small cabin with smoke rising from its chimney and a handful of students drifting in to listen.
It makes a gentle stop on any trip through the college towns of southwestern Ohio — a reminder that some of the most cherished corners of a campus are the humble ones, and that a place can be remembered fondly long after its walls come down.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · Percy MacKaye
- · Robert Hamilton Bishop
Themes & tags
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