A Gathering of Poets, Papers, May 3-6, 1990

May 4 Collection -- Boxes 75, 75A, 75B, 76, 76A

Inventory

Prepared by Nancy Birk and Gail Redmann, February 1994
Updated by Katy L. Watts, February 2005
3.5 record storage boxes + 1 cassette case, 3.75 cubic ft., 12th floor

Historical Note

"On May 4, 5, and 6, 1990 a Gathering of Poets was held at Kent State University in conjunction with the May 4th 20th Anniversary Commission events. Approximately 125 poets from all over the United States responded to personal invitations or to the open call to poets to come to Kent State on May 4th and remember the four students left dead and the nine others wounded by the Ohio National Guard on May 4, 1970. An ad-hoc committee of the May 4th 20th Anniversary Commission planned all the poetry events. Members of this committee were poets who live in Kent, some affiliated with Kent State University and some not ....

In addition to the poets who attended the Gathering of Poets, many others who were not able to attend sent poems or messages to be read." So describes Gathering convener and poet Maggie Anderson in the proposal for the published anthology, A Gathering of Poets which resulted from the convergence of poets at Kent State in May of 1990.

Scope and Content

The material contained in this collection is divided into four distinct series. The first series contains materials related to the planning, organization and actual events of the Gathering of Poets which took place May 3-6, 1990. The second series contains the correspondence and poetry of poets who participated in the Gathering and its anthology. The third series are tape recordings of the poetry readings and other events at the Gathering. The final series contains materials that relate to the publication of the anthology, A Gathering of Poets, published by the Kent State University Press in 1992. The first printing had a print run of 2000 paper and 750 cloth, and the second printing occurred in 1993. There are copies in the collection of the Main Library and also in Special Collections under the call number PS615.G35 1992.

This collection is a mélange of the personal papers of Maggie Anderson, Ray Craig, and Alex Gildzen. Anderson and Craig were members of the committee who organized the Gathering event. Anderson and Gildzen were the editors of the anthology with Craig as associate editor. The audio tapes chronicling the actual readings were recorded by the Special Collections and Archival staff as part of the documentation of May 4th commemorations. All materials have been generously donated to the Department of Special Collections & Archives by the above-mentioned individuals. There are no restrictions on use of the collection by researchers other than the usual copyright restrictions of literary material.

Box 75

Folder -- Contents

Series 1: The Gathering: Organizational Materials

Series 2: Poets and Their Poems – Contents

Box 75A

Folder -- Contents

Series 2: Poets and their Poems (cont’d)

Box 75B

Folder – Contents Series Series 3: Tapes -- Contents

1 -- "5/4/90 Wright-Curtis 8:30 pm"

Side A:

1) male - Paul Zimmer's "How Birds Should Die"* (p. 278); "Thanksgiving";"Christian Scientist"; "Cape Cod 1960, Peking 1997; "Explaining Why He Drove Over Two Teenage Blond Girls": "The Happiest Days of My Life"

2) Ed Ochester - "When the Dow Jones Industrial Index Hit its All Time High in1966"; "Dialogue (ca 1969); "America is Running" (ca 1971); "Looking Good" (ca1990); "I'm Not the World's Most Physical Guy" (about Jesse Helms); "Oh, By theWay"*(p. 118).

3) Craig Paulenich - "Night Sauna"*(p. 279); "Carp"; "The Still Changes"; "Ursa" (series of 3 poems: "The Road"; poem about Kicking Bear, Sioux Chief at WoundedKnee - title unclear; "Old Man with Claws")

4) Gerald Stern - poem about Genesis 22 (Abraham and Isaac); Nazim Hikmet's "On Living"*(p. 279)

Side B:

1) Gerald Stern (cont.) - "Today a Leaf"; "When I Have Reached the Point ofSuffocation"; "Lucky Life"*(p. 272); Virginia Dunn's poem about Moses

2) Open readings

3) Alice ? - C.K. Williams' "In the Heart of the Beast"*(p. 72)

4) Jacquie Thornberry - "Piet family history" (brief poems of family recollections)

5) Dave Thornberg - poem about seasons; "I witness a distant dance. . ."; "Glen"; "Caspar"; "At the Goodwill Store. . ."; "Jesus is Love. . ."; "WWII"; "Hitler Had a Dog"; "Walking home after burning Baron Frankenstein's castle. . ."; five brief family poems.

6) Lowell Jaeger - "Why do I Hate You?"

7) Toi Derricotte - "The Drugstore" (part)

2 -- "5/4/90 Wright-Curtis 10:00 pm"

Side A:

1) Toi Derricotte (cont.) - "The Drugstore" (conclusion); "Captivity: The Minks"*(p. 211)

2) Alicia Ostriker? - Dahlia Ravikovitch's "Hovering at Low Altitude"*(209);opening section of The Mother and Child Papers.

3) Gerald Stevenson? - Michael Dennis Browne's "Song"; "Evensong"; "Bluegrass Seasons"; "Wynan's Place"; Marvin Bell's "Green"*(p. 140)

4) Tom Beckett - "TV"

5) Yusef Komunyakaa - "Venus's Flytraps"; "Camouflage in Dashimia (sp?)";"You and I Are Disappearing"*(p. 44); "Thanks"*(p. 262).

6) James Ragan - "The Tent People of Beverly Hills"; "Horrible and Fascinating"; "The Defense Trial of Hans Vilver (sp?)".

7) Patricia Goedicke - "Dead Baby"*(p. 183); "The Tongues We Speak".

8) Amy Kirk - "1970 saw me in a crib. . ."; "I'm the last of the orange. . .".

9) Wendy Schaffer - "Summer"; "Waitress Poem"; title unclear.

10) Eva Wei - Robert A. Weiler's "The Great American Way"

11) Chris Franke - "The Clean Poem"; "Elegy for Some NEA Funds in 1989".

Side B:

1) Eva Wei - "Remembering Mother"; "A Cloud is More".

2) Kevin Clark - Hannah Stein's "Hunger Strike"; "The Sky"*(p. 174)

3) Morton Marcus - refused to read because of late hour; asked to be postponed until following evening.

4) Tiff Holland? - Allen Ginsburg's "Cosmopolitan Greetings"*(p. 247)

3 -- "Brady's 5/4/90 - open readings (1:30 am)"

Side A:

1) male - "Chant Fantasia and Themes of Hoffman, Etc.", "1989 Beijing Spring";"Oh Say Can You See, 7/4/89".

2) female - "Ode to Ronald Reagan"

3) male - "Peace Vigil and Cove Park"; "The War at Home"; "Fog"; "Wierd"

4) male - "Try to Read More Proust and Train Your Memory"; "Time"

5) Barry Zucker - James Snidell's (sp?) "City Life Along the Homefront, 1942";"Bomb"

6) male - "The Absurd Damnation"

7) female - untitled, about the town of Kent

8) female - cut off

Side B:

1) male - part of first poem; "His Palm"

2) Ray ? - Todd Rungren's song about steel mill closing in Cleveland

3) female - "The Penalty of Indifference"

4) female - "Imagine"

5) male - "Sh, Don't Tell the Children"; "Seeds"; "The Wall of Tears"; "Nagasaki"

6) male - "5/4/90. . ."

7) Mitchell Cohn - "Brooklyn Snow"; poem about the film "The Day After"

4 -- "5/5/90 Wright-Curtis 10:00 am" (poor quality):

Side A:

1) male (from upstate NY) - unintelligible; "1954"; "How We Pray"; "TheChildren's Poetry"; "Martin's Nursing Home"; "The Clearing"; "Poem for Victor Hugo"

2) female - "Enough"; "Getting it Straight from Egypt"; "Tuckerman's Ravine Trail"; "Blossom. . ."

Side B:

1) music

2) male - "The "CIA"

3) male - untitled about freedom; "12:25 pm May 4. . ."

4) Kathe Davis - Nell Janik's (sp?) "A New May"; "The Hardest Thing"*(p.160)

5) male - poem about May 4; "To Hungry Teamsters. . ."; "Cacophonic Mosaic of Cuyahoga"; "Blue"; "First Cutting"

5 -- "5/5/90 Wright-Curtis 12:15"

1) Eva Wei - poem about mother; unintelligible

2) Susan Jacobson? - Yvonne Hardenbrook's "History Lesson"*(p.66); "ShiftChange"; title unclear; "Catafalque"

3) Jimmy Cvetic - selection from "On Walden Pond"; two selection's from poet's work in progress, "The Trial of Harry S. Truman": "The House that Never Rose" and"56th Day of Trial"

Side B:

1) Jimmy Cvetic (cont.) - "The Lottery"; "The Impression on the Wall"; "The Wall"

2) female - "Ten Count"; "Jill"; "VA Hospital"; "Photograph of My Child";"Sparrow in the Backyard"

3) group of students from writing program at University of Pittsburgh reading thefollowing poems: a) selections from Kate Daniel's "The Niobe Poems"*: "The Little King"(p.193); "Afterwards Apollo"(p.195); "But Artemis"(p.196); "The Death of the Niobids"(p.198) b) William Matthews' "Why We Are Truly a Nation" *(p.26)c) Jonathan Williams' "The FBI files on. . ." *(p.116); "The Last"; "Penitentiary Whistle"; "Determination" d) Kay ? - "Nam Cut"; "Willie Shoemaker's Grandmother"' "Lessons from her Belly"; e) Chana Bloch's "Rising to Meet It"*(p.186)

6 -- "5/5/90 Wright-Curtis, 1:40 pm"

Side A: blank

Side B:

1) female - part of first poem; "Old Neighborhood"

2) female - Michael Waters' "The Torches"*(p.104); "On Death and Dying"; "Offerings"

3) female - Honor Moore's "Spuyten Duyvil: 9"(p.233); unintelligible

4) male ("Santa Claus"): "Merry Christmas 1989"; "Christmas and the Christ Child"; "The Hope of the World in the 1990s"; "What is This Thing Called Love?"; "The Lady that Lives Alone"; "Mother's Day"

5) male - "A Guardsman's Letter to Santa"; May 4 poem; "Minor Notes"; "Fallen Soldiers of the World"; "Henry the Rabbit Gets a New Clutch"

6) female - "It could have been you. . ."; "Shadows"; "Atonement for Eve"

7 -- "5/5/90 Wright-Curtis 2:20 pm"

Side A:

1) female (6B, #6 cont.) - untitled poem about family connections

2) female - "Losing Space" (story fragment); "Womb One"(?); "Sleeping in theAlley"; "Be Water"

3) Eva Wei - Chinese song; prayer poem based on Matt. 11: 25-30

4) Bob Moore - unintelligible; May 4 poem; anti-war poem; unintelligible;"Another sanctimonious protest poem designed to make the poet feel superior to the ordinary lowlife, guaranteed not to have the slightest impact on stopping the war machine"; "The Pathology of Space"

5) male - unclear

Side B:

1) male (from Dayton) - "Remembering Soot"(?); "Living in Kyoto"; "Love for FallClay"; "Let Your Ears Perk Up"

2) female - "I'm a Slow Girl from Oregon"; "The Game"; "Inside These Waters";"Inland Sea"

3) music and unintelligible voice

4) male - "Guadalorco (sp?) Massacre in Mexico City"

5) male - "Luck"; "The Order Came Down"; "The Ones Not Rescued"; "Perhaps in an "Elevator One Day"; "Facts"; "Indigenous"

8 -- "5/5/90 Wright-Curtis 3:45pm"

Side A:

1) male (student of poetry from Washington State) - "Lines from My Grandfather Face Down in a Ditch"

2) male (professor of poetry at Hiram) - "The Flesh"; "The Life Lovers"; "George"; "Why There is no Artificial Intelligence"; "Baseball Sacrifice: Sudden Death"

3) female - "Doctor's gone fishing. . ."

4) male - "Let's Hope This Thing Blows Over Soon"

5) female - "At the Corinthian Theater"; "Black and White"; "Port au Prince, Haiti: May 4th, 1972"; "Hunting Swan"; "Understanding"; "Not Now"

Side B:

1) female - "Bus Ride in Germany"; "What Can Come of Hurting"; "Coming Back"; "St. Nectarius"; "If we could only drink the dreams of the good world. . ."

2) female - "Ginseng Capital of the World"

3) Terry Emington - "For Allison's Daughter"; "Nobody Takes Me Serious"

4) male - "In Cambodia Where Already Dead" (?); "The Language of the Dead";"The Moving Wall Comes to Macomb, Illinois"

5) Ora Ford - "Come to the Master in Prayer"; "When We're All Together May 4th1970"; "I No Longer Need to Cry"; "God Made You Special"

6) male - "Time"

9 -- "5/5/90 Wright-Curtis 7:00 pm"

Side A:

1) Maggie Anderson - "Art in America"*(p.276)

2) Jane Pirto - "In 1970, the B52s. . ."

3) Richard Dillon - "Epigram Never Did Nothing"(?); "Wild Kingdom"

4) Mort Krahling - "Spring Kent"

5) Judy Kerman - "Politics"; "Coathanger"; "Mothering"; "The Use of Force in Public Architecture"; "Pilgrimage Place - KSU"; title in Hebrew

6) Terry Murcko - "Golgotha"; "Sometime During the Moonwalk Party in July1970"; "Even a Busted Clock"

7) John Sollers - "Instant Recall"

8) Ray Craig - "Gathering"

Side B:

1) Marc Harshman - "Almost"; "Listening and Telling"*(p.231); "Mousal"(?)

2) unidentified - "The Fourth Fact"; "The Mother and Child Reunion"; "I've sent my sister down the beach. . ."

3) Karl Patten - e.e. cummings' "Olaf"; "Remembering on a Birthday"; "Saint Cow"*(p.20)

4) Jean Valentine - Osip Mandelstam's "#394"*(p.100); "X"; "The Undervoice"

10 -- "5/5/90 Wright-Curtis 8:30 pm"

Side A:

1) Morton Marcus - "This is Life; This is my Body"; "The Cell"*(p.243); poem about the Yugoslavian birthplace of Charlie Simic(sp?); "The Other"

2) Maggie Anderson - "Heart Fire"*(p.188); "Gifts"

3) Jim Daniels - "Signing"; "Pieces"; "A Real Comedian: The True Genius of Bob Hope"*(p.111)

4) Sandra Williams - "Learning to Fish"*(p.21); "Speed of Sound"; "Traveling"

5) Tom Crawford - "The Firing"; untitled; "Laundry"; "Mourning Farouck"(?);"The Heart"*(p.264); "Song of the Carpenter"

Side B:

1) Tom Crawford (cont.) - untitled; "War Effort, 1943"*(p.16); "Snow"

2) Maxine Scates - Ann Stanford's "Our Town"*(p.91); "The Teacher"*(p.87)(written by Scates about Ann Stanford); "Desire in America"

3) David Sherin - "The Discovery of Fire"*(p.71); "Why East and West Don'tUnderstand One Another"; "They Only Went Out Once"; "Needles and Knees"

4) Lynn Sollers - "Three Lakes, Wisconsin"

5) Christopher Howell - Thomas O'Leary's "The Dream of a Citizen Soldier on the Eve of Execution"; "Dear Mrs. Terry"

11 -- "5/5/90 Wright-Curtis 10:30 pm"

Side A:

1) Christopher Howell (cont.) - "Liberty and Ten Years of Return"*(p.107); "SpiritHovering Above the Box"; " A Reminder to the Current President"*(p.31); "A Cry"

2) Irene McKinney - "Deep Mining"; "Visiting My Gravesite: Talbott Churchyard,West Virginia"*(p.207); "Chrysanthemums"; "Twilight in West Virginia: 6 o'clock Mine Report"

3) Judith Platz - "You Must Want to Swim"; "Grandmother's Song"

4) Bill Tremblay - "Evening with Novelists at Crown Point Estates"; "Learning to Listen"; "Notes on Grace"

Side B:

1) Bill Tremblay (cont.) - selection from Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass

2) Sharon Doubiago - journal entry of 7 May 1993; "Sometimes I Understand the Hatred Against Women"*(p.45); "Austin: the Making of the Boy"; journal entryregarding the Chappaquidick incident; "How Do I Love Thee? Let Me Count the Ways"

3) Dick Bakken - virtually unintelligible ["Going into Moonlight,"p.265)]

12 -- Side A:

1) Dick Bakken (cont.)

2) female - Lisel Mueller's "Bedtime Story"*(p.167)

3) male - Alan Williamson's "Freeze-Frame"*(p.151)

4) female - Maxine Kumen's "The Poet's Garden"*(p.267)

5) male - Kelly Cherry's "The Fate of the Children"*(p.172)

6) male - William Studebaker's "Trace Elements Around the Saylor Creek Bombing Range"*(p.120)

7) female - Joy Harjo's "Eagle Poem"(p.282)

8) Elin Forchay? - "There is a cyclone fenced between ourselves and the slaughter. . ."

9) female - Sharon Olds' "The Protestor"*(p.50)

10) female - Jane Cooper's "The Flashboat"*(p.274); Tess Gallagher's "As If HeWere Free"*(p.269)

11) male - Jules Whitman's "Translitic"(sp?)

12) male - Edward Field's "The Scream"*

13) female - Robin Becker's "Birch Trees"* (interference)

14) male - "Poets of the world ignite. . ."

15) female - unintelligible

16) male - Lewis Parker's "The Eagle Call'; a poem submitted by a Jackson State student titled "A Slave's Prayer"

A Gathering of Poets, Papers, May 3-6, 1990

May 4 Collection -- Boxes 75, 75A, 75B, 76, 76A

Inventory

Historical Note

Scope and Content

Box 75

Folder -- Contents

Series 1: The Gathering: Organizational Materials

Series 2: Poets and Their Poems – Contents

Box 75A

Folder -- Contents

Series 2: Poets and their Poems (cont’d)

Box 75B

Folder – Contents Series Series 3: Tapes -- Contents

1 -- "5/4/90 Wright-Curtis 8:30 pm"

Side A:

Side B:

2 -- "5/4/90 Wright-Curtis 10:00 pm"

Side A:

Side B:

3 -- "Brady's 5/4/90 - open readings (1:30 am)"

Side A:

Side B:

4 -- "5/5/90 Wright-Curtis 10:00 am" (poor quality):

Side A:

Side B:

Side B:

6 -- "5/5/90 Wright-Curtis, 1:40 pm"

Side A: blank

Side B:

7 -- "5/5/90 Wright-Curtis 2:20 pm"

Side A:

Side B:

8 -- "5/5/90 Wright-Curtis 3:45pm"

Side A:

Side B:

9 -- "5/5/90 Wright-Curtis 7:00 pm"

Side A:

Side B:

10 -- "5/5/90 Wright-Curtis 8:30 pm"

Side A:

Side B:

11 -- "5/5/90 Wright-Curtis 10:30 pm"

Side A:

Side B:

12 -- Side A:

Side B: blank

End of Wright-Curtis program

13 -- "Gathering of Poets, Sunday, May 6, 1990 - Plum Creek Park"

Side A: blank

Side B:

Box 76

Series 4: A Gathering of Poets Anthology

Box 76A

Series 4: A Gathering of Poets Anthology (cont’d)