HOLLIS ClassicHoughton Library
Woodberry Poetry Room Collection
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John Berryman
Ted Berrigan
Elizabeth Bishop
Laura (Riding) Jackson
Jack Kerouac
Robert Lowell
Charles Olson
Ezra Pound
Adrienne Rich
Muriel Rukeyser These audio files are encoded in RealAudio format and require the RealPlayer software for playback. A basic version is available as a free download from the Real website. |
- Welcome
- History
- About the Collections
- Visitor Information
- Permissions Information
- Programs and Events
- Contact Us
Welcome
Welcome to the Woodberry Poetry Room, home to an unparalleled collection of 20th and 21st century English-language poetry books and serials, audio recordings, and rare materials. Founded in 1931, in honor of Harvard alumnus, poet and scholar George Edward Woodberry (1855-1930), the Poetry Room offers students, faculty, scholars and members of the public a comprehensive experience of the art-form: from written text, to audio and visual recordings, to live readings and events.
Inaugurated by a 1930 recording of T. S. Eliot, the Woodberry’s inimitable audio archive has grown into one of the most comprehensive recording collections of poetry in the country, second only to the Library of Congress. The collection today includes such voices as W. H. Auden, Ted Berrigan, Elizabeth Bishop, Yves Bonnefoy, Joseph Brodsky, Gwendolyn Brooks, Robert Creeley, E. E. Cummings, Robert Duncan, Robert Frost, Allen Ginsberg, Louise Gluck, Ted Hughes, Robinson Jeffers, Philip Larkin, Denise Levertov, Audre Lorde, Robert Lowell, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Czeslaw Milosz, Marianne Moore, Vladimir Nabokov, Sharon Olds, Sylvia Plath, Adrienne Rich, Siegfried Sassoon, Anne Sexton, Wallace Stevens and James Tate. It is, according to Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney, “indispensable: it contains not only the voices—from different times of their lives—of the greatest poets, but constitutes a living history of modern poetry."
In addition to its vast audio archive, the Poetry Room has served as the site of readings by a breathtaking array of writers. This tradition continues today with a rich assortment of programs and events, as well as a significant effort to preserve and digitize the Woodberry’s pivotal recordings for generations to come. We welcome you to visit the Poetry Room and experience its vital and ongoing role in contemporary poetry.
History
From its founding, the Poetry Room’s vision was a unique one: to provide a “comfortable, unlibrary-like” place in which students and faculty could encounter “the poetry of their own century,” a subject which was largely unrecognized in the American curriculum of that era.
Situated on the top floor of the Widener Library for nearly two decades, the Poetry Room was moved in 1949 to a room originally designed by renowned Finnish architect Alvar Aalto in Lamont Library, where it has played both a symbolic and active role in Harvard University’s early championing of contemporary poetry. According to Professor Harry Levin, it was no accident that the Poetry Room opened just a year prior to T. S. Eliot’s arrival on campus in 1932, as the Charles Eliot Norton Professor of Poetry.
During the same period, recording pioneer Frederick C. Packard began to collaborate with the Poetry Room on a prescient and groundbreaking series of recordings of contemporary poets, under the “Harvard Vocarium” label. Inaugurated by Packard’s 1930 Vocarium recording of T. S. Eliot and swiftly followed by recordings of the Poetry Room’s Morris Gray Lectures (the illustrious lecture and reading series that is now overseen by the Department of English), the audio collection has grown into one of the preeminent audio archives in the United States.
For over a half a century, the Poetry Room has functioned as a creative and dynamic focal point for Harvard students, faculty and scholars, and as a gathering space for a range of Harvard students who have gone on to play a pivotal role in the 20th and 21st century literary landscape—among them, John Ashbery, Frank O’Hara and Kenneth Koch. To this day, visitors from all over the world and across all disciplines enter the Poetry Room and discover an inspiring place for scholarly contemplation and artistic creation.
About the Collections
Audio Collection
Established in 1931, the Woodberry Poetry Room audio collection is one of the preeminent audio archives in the country. Prescient in its appreciation of the relationship between audio recording and poetic scholarship, the Woodberry Poetry Room collection has become one of the most comprehensive collections of 20th and 21st century poetry recordings in the country. Some highlights from the audio collection include recordings by John Ashbery, Ted Berrigan, John Berryman, Elizabeth Bishop, T. S. Eliot, Robert Frost, Allen Ginsberg, Seamus Heaney, Randall Jarrell, Robinson Jeffers, Jack Kerouac, Denise Levertov, Audre Lorde, Robert Lowell, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Vladimir Nabokov, Frank O’Hara, Charles Olson, Ezra Pound, Sylvia Plath, Laura (Riding) Jackson, Adrienne Rich, Muriel Rukeyser, Siegfried Sassoon, Wallace Stevens, Allen Tate and William Carlos Williams.
The collection comprises over 6,000 recordings, including those made in conjunction with the Woodberry Poetry Room, the audio archives of the Academy of American Poets and the Aspen Writers’ Conference, as well as an extensive numbers of recordings by early recording pioneers, independent studios and commercial recording companies.
For a list of recordings made for the Woodberry Poetry Room, please consult our finding guide on OASIS. For a more general overview of the reel-to-reels, tapes, lps, CDs and videos in the collection, visit HOLLIS and conduct an “expanded search” using the following search terms:
Keyword: “poetry”
Location: “Poetry Room (Lamont)”
Format: “audio”
Some of our audio collection is not represented in HOLLIS. If you cannot find a particular recording via HOLLIS, we recommend that you consult our card catalog or contact the curator via e-mail or telephone at (617) 495-2454.
Access Policies
The audio collection is accessible by arrangement with the curator. All recordings (including listening copies) must be listened to in the Poetry Room. If no listening copy exists, the curator will determine whether material is suitable for duplication. A minimum of one week is required to produce a listening copy of any recording. All copies remain the property of the Poetry Room. If you are a non-Harvard affiliate and would like to learn more about visiting the Poetry Room audio collection, click here.
Book & Serial Collection
The Woodberry book collection presents highlights from 20th and 21st century English-language poetry and poetry in translation. In addition, the room features a non-circulating collection of current poetry journals from across the country and around the world, which are free to be perused by all visitors. The books and serials are shelved in the creative and comfortable setting of the Poetry Room, designed by the revered Finnish architect Alvar Aalto, with views overlooking the majestic Memorial Church and Harvard Yard.
To search for a specific title or a particular poet in the circulating collection, visit HOLLIS and conduct an “expanded search” using the following search term:
Location: “Poetry Room (Lamont)”
Access Policies
While the general public is welcome to peruse the collection, books in the Poetry Room do not circulate to anyone not affiliated with Harvard University.
Blue Star Collection
In addition to its circulating and audio-visual collections, the Poetry Room contains over 4,000 Blue Star materials, a non-circulating collection of rare and ephemeral poetry publications and materials. Highlights from the Blue Star collection include typescripts of poems by Sylvia Plath, Theodore Roethke's annotated edition of Rilke's Duino Elegies, a cigar smoked by Amy Lowell, broadsides signed by Elizabeth Bishop and Allen Ginsberg, archival photographs of Robert Frost, Marianne Moore and Ted Hughes and portraits by Larry Rivers, as well as first (or signed) editions of works by John Ashbery, Jorge Luis Borges, Basil Bunting, E. E. Cummings, Robert Duncan, Odysseus Elytis, Langston Hughes, Jack Kerouac, Robert Lowell, Pablo Neruda, Frank O'Hara, Ezra Pound, Adrienne Rich, Laura Riding, Wallace Stevens, Wislawa Szymborska, Dylan Thomas, Louis Zukofsky and many more.
For a comprehensive list of Blue Star materials, visit HOLLIS and conduct an “expanded search” using the following search terms:
Keyword: Blue Star
Location: “Poetry Room (Lamont)”
Access Policies
The Blue Star collection is accessible by arrangement with the curator. All Blue Star materials must remain in the Poetry Room. Photocopies of materials that are not fragile or whose duplication is not prohibited can be made on request (for a fee and as staff time permits).
Visitor Information
The Poetry Room is open to all Harvard students, faculty, staff, alumni, and members of the public. For further information see:
Send general inquiries to: poetryrm@fas.harvard.edu
Permissions Information
Non-commercial Use
Scholars and educators wishing to receive a listening copy of a Woodberry Poetry Room recording for academic purposes must receive permission from the pertinent copyright holder(s). Once written permission is obtained from the publisher/estate, we will be able to consider your listening copy request. For all Academy of American Poets recordings (on deposit at the Poetry Room), permission must be obtained by the Academy.
The Poetry Room reserves the right to refuse requests that cannot be filled due to the fragility of master recordings, staff time limitations, or other constraints. Sound quality of Poetry Room archival audio materials varies greatly; no guarantee of reproduction quality can be made. All copies are produced for one-time, academic use. Prepayment to cover reproduction (and shipping, if necessary) is required.
Commercial Use
The Poetry Room cannot copy material that is or has been made commercially available elsewhere, and no reproductions of Woodberry Poetry Room recordings can be made without advanced authorization from the pertinent copyright holder(s). In addition, the Poetry Room reserves the right to refuse requests that cannot be filled due to the fragility of master recordings, staff time limitations, or other constraints. Sound quality of Poetry Room archival audio materials varies greatly; no guarantee of reproduction quality can be made. Prepayment to cover audio reproduction (and shipping, if necessary) is required.
For additional questions relating to commercial use of Poetry Room audio materials, please contact the curator via e-mail or telephone at (617) 495-2454.
Fee Structure
We recommend that you consult HOLLIS or the Woodberry Poetry Room Finding Aid to learn more about the particular recording and to find out if it is currently archived as a compact disc, LP, cassette tape and/or reel to reel. If a recording already exists in digital format, we do not charge a reformatting fee. A basic processing fee of $50/track will be charged. Fees must be received in advance.
Production time varies depending on the medium. However, all production times listed below presume that permissions will be received in advance from the respective author, estate and/or publisher. The Woodberry Poetry Room will not proceed without written permission from the pertinent copyright holder(s). Permission letters may be sent via email or post.
Requests to copy previously digitized materials to CD (MP3 files):
$50/CD (allow 2-4 weeks for production by Poetry Room)
Requests to reformat a cassette tape or LP to CD (MP3 files):
Cassette Tape: $200/cassette (allow 2-4 weeks for production by Poetry Room)
LP: $100/record (allow 2-4 weeks for production by Poetry Room)
Requests to reformat a reel-to-reel to a CD (MP3 or .wav files):
Reel-to-Reel: $500 (8+ weeks for production by audio consultant)
Payment Information
Once you have made arrangements with the curator and confirmed the fee for your particular request, checks (in U.S. dollars) should be made payable to: “Harvard College Library.” Please send checks to the attention of: Woodberry Poetry Room, Lamont Library, Room 330, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138.
Contact Us
Woodberry Poetry Room
Lamont Library, Room 330
Harvard University
Cambridge, MA 02138
Phone: (617) 495-2454
Fax: (617) 495-1376
E-mail: Woodberry Poetry Room Staff Directory
