UB’s poetry treasures find global audience
Collection of artifacts ‘puts us on the map’
The knapsack Robert Graves carried in World War I. James Joyce’s eyeglasses and opera cane. A self-portrait by Wyndham Lewis. The fold-up typewriter used by William Carlos Williams, plus his writing desk.
Picture all of that literary treasure — plus thousands of pieces of paper containing the handwritten and typescript drafts of poems by these poets (some by the physician Williams scratched in first-draft form on blanks torn off prescription pads) — and many more.
It’s all in Buffalo, and it’s all housed in the University at Buffalo’s Poetry Collection.
Now, the world is figuring that out. And suddenly Buffalo’s treasures are very much in demand.
This summer, more of the irreplaceable books, manuscripts and artifacts in the UB Poetry Collection will be criss-crossing the country and the world than ever before, curators of the collection said.
“It puts us on the map,” said Michael Basinski, chief curator of the collection. “We get to show the world that we are a primo research library, and these are just representative pieces. It sells our trademark to the rest of the world.
“And it’s great bragging rights.”
These literary artifacts and papers will bring delight, illumination and excitement this year to audiences in cities from New York to London.
Then, they’ll all return to Buffalo, to be kept safe in a city — and university — that is building a pre-eminent world reputation for its poetry and literature- related resources.
“There is absolutely nothing like handling a text,” said Neil Baldwin, a Williams expert who studied at UB in the early 1970s and is now a distinguished visiting professor at Montclair State University. “This is one of the great, great resources of the State University at Buffalo. I’m so glad to see it’s going in this direction.”
How did all this literary treasure end up in Buffalo — and where is it headed on tour?
The answer to the first question is simple. In 1937, a “Poetry Project” began at UB, which had recently been enriched by the donation of the personal library of Thomas Lockwood by librarian Charles D. Abbott.
Abbott’s goal was to collect manuscripts and materials from major and minor poets of his day, figuring — with what looks now like remarkable foresight — that those then-cutting-edge poets would someday be much studied and discussed in scholarly circles. That appreciation in value would give the collection a great deal of importance, in Abbott’s view.
“He thought it would take 100 years before people would appreciate the significance,” Basinski said of Abbott’s dream. “We’re a little ahead of that. It’s been about 75.”
Over the years since Abbott’s tenure, the Poetry Collection has been enriched in ways big and small.
Working poets — such as Williams — donated some of their lifetime’s worth of materials after being convinced by UB staff that such donations would be meaningful.
“It was an unprecedented idea,” Baldwin said of Abbott’s pitch to Williams for his papers and materials. “And Williams just started emptying out his attic. Every time he came to visit he would bring boxes with him. Charles Abbott called [the Poetry Project] a ‘laboratory for the creative process.’ William Carlos Williams, being a physician and a scientist — I felt that was right up his alley. He got that message.”
Other caches of material — including the James Joyce collection, which is the library’s most significant holding by a single author — were donated by key collectors. Much of what UB owns of Joyce’s work was once owned by New York City bookseller and literary-world light Sylvia Beach.
The library has major holdings in Dylan Thomas, Wyndham Lewis and Robert Graves, among other artists and writers.
Now, material in the collection is traveling far and wide, to eager audiences all over the globe.
People want to see the actual manuscripts and books that authors wrote in and on, and they crave contact with items and artifacts from the writers’ lives.
“We are still very much tied to objects, rarefied objects,” said Basinski. “We want to see it. The ‘it’ part of the collection is what people most want to see. People will drive hundreds and hundreds of miles out of their way to stand in front of a notebook. It’s that sense of object. There’s an aura about these things.”
Baldwin, the Williams scholar who used UB’s holdings while researching his biography of the poet, “To All Gentleness: William Carlos Williams, the Doctor Poet,” said that examinations of Williams’ poetry drafts yield tremendous insights into his working methods and thought processes.
“He saved everything,” Baldwin said of Williams. “One of the most fascinating things about his archive is how many first drafts of poems are written on prescription pads. He saved every draft, and you can see the changes from one draft to the next, how he changed things and moved them around.
Among the appearances of UB’s holdings, happening now or in the planning stages:
• In London right now, a large formal portrait of Samuel Capen by artist and writer Wyndham Lewis, dating to the 1930s, is part of an exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery called “Wyndham Lewis: Portraits.”
“It probably hasn’t been off the campus since the ’70s,” Basinski said of the portrait. “It’s never been shown outside of Western New York.”
• In New York City, the Guggenheim Museum will open an exhibit called “American Art and Asia” on Jan. 30 that will include an item from the UB collection, a small first-edition musical composition by John Cage called “Haiku.”
That work was composed at Black Mountain College in 1951, and Alexandra Munroe, senior curator of Asian Art at the Guggenheim, said it will fit right in to the museum’s show.
• Also in New York, a painting by Jess, the singularly titled midcentury artist, of a mother and child walking together, called “A Mile to the Bus Stop,” is on display at Tibor de Nagy, a gallery known for exhibiting Jess’ art since the 1950s.
• In Iowa right now, more work by Jess is on tour, as part of a tour that will cover much of the United States.
The UB items on view in the Midwest include word collages, sketches and posters.
Other cities currently exploring loan opportunities with UB include museums in Cologne, Germany, and Wales, where a museum wants to borrow some of UB’s extensive holdings on Dylan Thomas, Basinski said.
