Billy Collins is one of the most widely read poets in America, and his witty, conversational poems illuminate the poignant details that often go unnoticed in everyday life. Within his archive at the Ransom Center are notebooks, drafts, proofs, and other documents relating to his poetry, essays, and other published works. His archive includes travel diaries, datebooks, sketchbooks and drawings, childhood writings, teaching materials, correspondence, and other materials that document his life ad career. [Read more…] about Billy Collins virtual poetry reading and discussion set for Dec. 3
poetry
International collaboration will lead to online archive of Welsh poet and writer
A digital collection of manuscripts and photographs related to Welsh poet and writer Dylan Thomas will soon be available online thanks to an international collaboration. [Read more…] about International collaboration will lead to online archive of Welsh poet and writer
Poetry and War: A Reading and Conversation
Commemorate World Poetry Day with a reading and conversation between two award-winning contemporary poets whose lives and writings have been impacted by war. [Read more…] about Poetry and War: A Reading and Conversation
Notebooks illuminate creative process behind Billy Collins’s poem “The Names”
This story originally appeared January 21, 2014.
Among the papers in the recently acquired Billy Collins archive are materials related to his poem “The Names,” which was written to commemorate the victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks. Interspersed throughout the poem are the names of 26 victims of the attacks, one name for each letter of the alphabet, from “Ackerman” through “Ziminsky.” [Read more…] about Notebooks illuminate creative process behind Billy Collins’s poem “The Names”
Cold War culture
Erik Mortenson discusses his book Ambiguous Borderlands and the pervasiveness of shadow imagery in Cold War materials.
Ambiguous Borderlands: Shadow Imagery in Cold War American Culture (Southern Illinois University Press, 2016) investigates the role shadows play in Cold War literary and popular texts. Informed by research at the Ransom Center, it examines Beat literature, postwar photography, film noir, Twilight Zone episodes, and more to explain why shadow imagery had such a hold on American imaginations in the mid-twentieth century. [Read more…] about Cold War culture
Borges, Beowulf, and Texas
How did an Argentine poet like Jorge Luis Borges end up reading and writing about Old English poetry? [Read more…] about Borges, Beowulf, and Texas