Research Guides: Poetry: Archival Collections and Primary Sources

Selected Archival Collections and Primary Sources

Archive for New Poetry (UC San Diego)
The Archive for New Poetry is a comprehensive research collection of American poetry and poetics reflecting and documenting alternative approaches to writing in the English language that have emerged since 1945. Although the Archive includes mainstream and academic poets, particularly those whose works are antecedent to post-war American experimental writing, most of the collection focuses on the "New American" poets: the Black Mountain poets, the Objectivist movement, the San Francisco Renaissance, the New York School, and the language writers.
Dickinson Electronic Archives
The Dickinson Electronic Archives 2 is a creative and critical collaboratory for reading Dickinson's material bodies and for featuring new critical and theoretical work about Emily Dickinson's writings, biography, reception, and influence, the Dickinson Electronic Archives 2 is a scholarly resource showcasing the possibility of interdisciplinary and collaborative research and exploring the potential of the digital environment to reveal new interpretive material, cultural, historical, and theoretical contexts.
First World War Poetry Digital Archive
The First World War Poetry Digital Archive is an online repository of over 7,000 items of text, images, audio, and video for teaching, learning, and research. The heart of the archive consists of collections of highly valued primary material from major poets of the period, including Wilfred Owen, Isaac Rosenberg, Robert Graves, Vera Brittain, and Edward Thomas.
South Carolina Poetry Archives at Furman University
The South Carolina Poetry Archives at Furman University is the largest collection of South Carolina poets and poetry. The collection contains the personal papers of over twenty poets and the published works of over one hundred authors, from the 18th through the 21st centuries.
Walt Whitman Archive
The Walt Whitman Archive endeavors to make Whitman's vast work freely and conveniently accessible to scholars, students, and general readers. Whitman, America's most influential poet and a writer of global renown, is the most challenging of all American authors in terms of the textual difficulties his work presents. His major life work, Leaves of Grass, went through six very different editions, each of which was issued in a number of formats, creating a book that is probably best studied as numerous distinct creations rather than as a single revised work.

Selected UCLA Special Collections Archival Collections

Selected archival resources related to poetry in Special Collections. Search the Online Archive of California for complete holdings.

Griffin (S.A.) collection of underground poetry, Scott Wannberg, and The Carma Bums circa 1950-2015
S.A. Griffin is a poet, performance artist, publisher, and actor with deep roots in the Los Angeles poetry and punk scenes beginning in the 1980s. The collection contains monographs, serials, manuscripts, correspondence, ephemera, audiovisual material, artwork, and memorabilia reflective of Griffin's extensive connections to Los Angeles poets and performance, including the Venice West Beat scene. The collection also includes the papers of fellow poet Scott Wannberg.
Rexroth (Kenneth) papers 1853-1986
Kenneth Rexroth (1905-1982) was an author, critic, poet, teacher, translator and active member of San Francisco's cultural, political, and poetry scenes from the 1930s through the 1960s. The collection consists of correspondence, manuscripts, and ephemera by and about Rexroth, and members of his circle.
Baraka (Amiri) papers 1952-1966
Amiri Baraka (1934-2014) was the founder and editor of the literary journals Yugen and Kulchur. An outspoken public intellectual, he was the author of poetry, plays, novels, and essays. The collection consists of poetry manuscripts and correspondence submitted to Baraka while editor of Yugen.
Coleman (Wanda) papers 1960-2013
Wanda Coleman was born on November 13, 1946 and grew up in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles, CA. Coleman's poetry is widely anthologized and published, and her poetry collection Bathwater Wine received the 1999 Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize. In addition to her poetic career, Coleman was also successful across genres. She had a well-known column in the Los Angeles Times and won an Emmy for her writing on Days of Our Lives. The collection contains work produced by Coleman between 1960 and 2013, including manuscripts and drafts of her published poetry and prose, journalism, writing for film and television, and spoken word recordings, as well as many unpublished writings. In addition, there is a wealth of correspondence with major literary figures and institutions, activist materials, and ephemera relating to Coleman's professional and personal life.
Schwartz (Delmore) papers 1923-1966
Delmore David Schwartz (1913-1966) was an English professor, editor (1943-47) and associate editor (1947-55) of the , and the poetry editor of the (1955-57). He also wrote poetry, plays, essays, translations, and stories, including (1938), (1948), and (1959), which won the Bollingen Prize in poetry and the Shelley Memorial Award in 1960. The collection consists of books and journals from Schwartz's library, most of which are heavily-annotated with his notes, nine holographic notebooks, and correspondence.
MacBeth (George) Papers 1950-1964
George MacBeth (1932-1992) is regarded as having a powerful influence on British poetry. His radio programs featured new poets and he was praised for his ability to recognize poetic excellence. He also wrote novels and nearly twenty volumes of verse. The collection consists of typescript and holograph manuscripts of MacBeth's poetry.
Garrett (Alexandra) Papers and Records of the Beyond Baroque Foundation 1965-1991
Alexandra Garrett was associated with the short-lived literary magazines Coastline and Trace. The first office of Beyond Baroque, a non-profit cultural and educational foundation in the Venice section of Los Angeles, opened in 1968. In the same year, the first issue of its avant-garde magazine, Beyond Baroque, was published, and its art gallery opened. In 1969, the Venice poetry workshops, readings, and music recitals began. In 1972, the Beyond Baroque Foundation was created. The first National Endowment for the Arts grant came in 1974, and by 1977, its library had grown to 10,000 volumes. By 1979, Garrett had become executive vice-president of the Foundation and assistant editor of Beyond Baroque magazine. The collection consists of correspondence, staff bulletins, reports, organizational charts, catalogs, calendars, press releases, board meeting minutes, by-laws, articles and printed materials, scrapbook, clippings and magazines.
Avant-garde poetry tape recordings 1966-1967
Collection consists of 42 reel-to-reel tapes recorded by Michael Silverton for an avant-garde poetry series for New York radio station WNYC in 1966, and another for radio station WBAI in 1967. Includes recordings by Kenneth Koch, John Ashbery, Ted Berrigan and others.