Building the House of Poetry

by JAMES MAYNARD

This year, the Poetry Collection celebrates its 90th anniversary of preserving the art of modern and contemporary poetry. In autumn 1935, Charles David Abbott (1900-1961), professor of English and the first director of libraries at what was then the University of Buffalo, began collecting books, magazines and eventually manuscripts and other materials to create what he initially called the “Poetry Project” in Lockwood Memorial Library on UB’s South Campus. His goal was to create a comprehensive laboratory in which one could access all the material resources necessary for the study of modern poetry.

Today, housed in Capen Hall on North Campus as part of UB Libraries Special Collections, the Poetry Collection continues to pursue and expand Abbott’s vision and serves as the library of record for 20th- and now 21st-century Anglophone poetry. Dedicated to preserving its plurality and diversity, the collection aims to gather all poetry in English since 1900 in order to document the evolution of poetics and the writing of individual poets, along with their social and historical contexts.

Over the past 90 years, numerous curators, catalogers, archivists, and student assistants—working in tandem with colleagues throughout the University Libraries—have each made indelible and significant contributions to building the Poetry Collection item by item and collection by collection into one of the world’s largest poetry libraries. With nearly 210,000 cataloged titles, the collection is comprehensive in its holdings of first and other significant editions of poetry and related publications (more than 175,000 titles); little literary magazines and journals (more than 11,500 serial titles); broadsides; anthologies (more than 10,500 titles); and criticism, including more than 4,200 reference titles. In addition to substantial collections of artwork, audio recordings (nearly 4,000), ephemera, photographs, visual poetry, mail art and zines, the Poetry Collection holds more than 175 archives and manuscript collections from a wide range of poets, presses, magazines and organizations.  More information about these materials is available at library.buffalo.edu/pl.

As an active research center for the study of modern and contemporary poetry, we open our doors each day to researchers and other visitors from around the world; provide course-integrated instruction with primary materials for undergraduate and graduate classes; host lectures, readings, conferences, and other events; and loan items to exhibitions. The collection also continues to explore new ways of making its holdings more publicly accessible— whether through reading room exhibitions like the most recent exhibition, The Language of Magic: Queer Occult Poetics, and its related programming, or through ongoing work to build a public museum for the James Joyce Collection in the old Lockwood Library—now, fittingly, named Abbott Hall—on the South Campus.

With the Poetry Collection’s 100th anniversary now coming into view, our future couldn’t be more exciting and we look forward each day to expanding the house of poetry for the next 90 years and beyond.

In honor of the Poetry Collection’s 90th anniversary, please consider making a tax-deductible gift to the Friends of the Poetry Collection Endowment Fund. The Friends fund supports the acquisition of new materials as well as special projects such as events and publications. To donate, visit library.buffalo.edu/pl/support. For more information about the current SUNY University Center Endowment Match or other ways to give including estate plans, contact Shana DiCamillo, director of advancement for University Libraries, at shanadic@buffalo.edu or 716-881-7485.

In addition to the 90th anniversary of the Poetry Collection, 2025 marks the 75th anniversary of its James Joyce Collection, the world’s largest and most comprehensive collection of manuscripts and other works by and about the renowned Irish writer. The first of several acquisitions arrived in Buffalo in fall 1950—nine years after Joyce’s death—and consisted of most of the items that were part of an exhibit of his family’s collection of Joyceana at the Librarie La Hune in Paris. Fortunately for the university, English Professor Oscar A. Silverman—later Charles Abbott’s successor as director of the University Libraries—was in Paris on sabbatical in fall of 1949 and visited the exhibition. Upon returning to Buffalo, he set into motion a series of events that led to Abbott purchasing the collection with the philanthropic support of Margaretta F. Wickser’s gift made in memory of her husband, Philip J. Wickser. The Joyce family collection consisted of nearly 600 items, including manuscripts, notebooks, correspondence, personal effects (such as canes, passports and eyeglasses), editions of Joyce’s books, family photographs and portraits, and Joyce’s Paris library. For more information about the UB James Joyce Collection, visit library.buffalo.edu/jamesjoyce.

James Maynard, PhD, is the curator of the Poetry Collection at the University at Buffalo Libraries.

Would you like to learn more about James Joyce and UB’s James Joyce Collection? James Maynard recently joined hosts Cliona O’Farrelly and Mark Sanford Gross on the podcast Ulyssesin80 to talk about the collection and the enduring power of Ulysses.