Marcia Nardi collection

Collection

Call Number: YCAL MSS 70

Scope and Contents

The Marcia Nardi collection contains correspondence and writings documenting her work as a poet between 1949 and 1983. The collection contains letters to Nardi by Louise Bogan, Marguerite Caetani, Randall Jarrell, Norman Holmes Pearson, Alec Waugh, Thornton Wilder, and others, most offering personal and professional advice and assistance in her efforts to complete a volume of poems. There is also a manuscript miscellany, "The New Helicon," in the hand of John Edmunds and a typescript of Nardi's poem "Femelle de l'homme." The collection also contains John Edmunds Papers pertaining to Nardi including correspondence from Nardi to Edmunds and typescript drafts of her unpublished book "Collected Poems."

Dates

1949-1983

Creator

Nardi, Marcia, 1901-1990

Language

English

Conditions Governing Access

The materials are open for research.

Conditions Governing Use

The Marcia Nardi Collection is the physical property of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University. Literary rights, including copyright, belong to the authors or their legal heirs and assigns. For further information, consult the appropriate curator.

Immediate Source of Acquisition

Purchased from Marcia Nardi on the Danford Barney and F. O. Matthiesson Fund, 1968, and from the Turtle Island Book Shop on the Elizabeth Wakeman Dwight Memorial Fund, 2004.

Arrangement

The Marcia Nardi Collection is organized into two series: Marcia Nardi Papers and John Edmunds Papers. Each series is organized into two subseries: Correspondence and Writings. The Marcia Nardi Papers were processed in 1993 and have not been re-processed. The John Edmunds Papers were processed in 2007.

Extent

0.63 Linear Feet (2 boxes)

Catalog Record

A record for this collection is available in Orbis, the Yale University Library catalog

Persistent URL

http://hdl.handle.net/10079/fa/beinecke.nardimarcia

Additional Description

Overview

Marcia Nardi (1901-1990)

Marcia Nardi, American poet, was born Lilian Massell in Boston and attended Girls' Latin School and Wellesley College, which she left in 1921 to live in Greenwich Village and to write. During this period Nardi contributed poetry and book reviews to publications such as the Nation, New Republic, Quarterly Review of Literature, the New York Times, and the New York Herald Tribune. In 1926 her son Paul was born, and Nardi was forced to take a variety of jobs to support him and herself. In 1942 she began a correspondence with William Carlos Williams, who used long sections of her letters in Books I and II of Paterson. Her Poems was published by Alan Swallow in 1956, and she received a Guggenheim fellowship in the following year. Nardi worked extensively with John Edmunds between 1972 and 1983 with the intention of publishing a collection of her poetry; however this project did not result in a publication before Nardi's death in 1990.