Ron Padgett papers

The collection consists of material created and accumulated by Ron Padgett in the course of his work as a poet, translator, and editor. Material includes extensive correspondence with other poets and writers; manuscripts for Padgett's books of poetry and prose, as well as some juvenilia and early writings; manuscripts for Padgett’s English translations of works by French-language poets including Guillaume Apollinaire, Blaise Cendrars, Valery Larbaud, Paul Morand, and Pierre Reverdy; manuscripts of collected letters and writings by others arranged and edited by Padgett, including works by Joe Brainard, Ted Berrigan, and Frank O’Hara; and manuscripts for writings by others, including filmmaker Jim Jarmusch. Also included are "bokes," the term coined by Padgett to describe the "little unique editions" Ted Berrigan and he made for each other beginning in the 1960s, which encompass dozens of unique handmade works by Tom Clark, Anne Waldman, Patricia Padgett, Bill Berkson, George Schneeman, Michael Brownstein, Larry Fagin, Tom Veitch, Aram Saroyan, Steve Carey, and Lewis Warsh, among others. Also found are notebooks, including numerous travel diaries, project notebooks, and personal journals; appointment books for the years 1971 to 2008; as well as teaching files; student papers; research material; printed material; and personal papers. Also included is a collection of the writings and correspondence of Padgett’s friend, gay artist and author Joe Brainard, as well as files for White Dove Review, edited by Padgett, along with Dick Gallup and Joe Brainard, while they were high school students in Tulsa, and Full Court Press, edited and published by Padgett, Joan Simon, and Anne Waldman from 1974 to 1989.

Correspondents include John Ashbery, Paul Auster, Glen Baxter, Bill Berkson, Ted Berrigan, Joe Brainard, Michael Brownstein, Rudy Burckhardt, Tom Clark, Clark Coolidge, Jim Dine, Kenward Elmslie, Clayton Eshleman, Larry Fagin, Kathleen Fraser, Dick Gallup, Lyn Hejinian, Susan Howe, Alex Katz, Kenneth Koch, Ann Lauterbach, Harry Mathews, Bernadette Mayer, Alice Notley, Maureen Owen, Tom Raworth, Charles Reznikov, Ed Sanders, Aram Saroyan, George Schneeman, James Schuyler, Tony Towle, Tom Veitch, Anne Waldman, Lewis Warsh, and Trevor Winkfield, among others. Among the highlights are a complete file of correspondence between Padgett and Joe Brainard from 1962 to 1993, including Padgett's letters to Brainard which were returned to Padgett upon Brainard's death in 1994; a complete file of correspondence between Padgett and Berrigan from 1959 to 1983; and extensive correspondence from James Schuyler, as well as correspondence from Schuyler to Joe Brainard, dating from 1966 to 1990.

The White Dove Review files consist of all known correspondence and manuscripts, including those of Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, e. e. cummings, Robert Creeley, LeRoi Jones, David Meltzer, and Ron Lowinsohn, among others, and provide documentation of the magazine that helped launch Padgett's career and that influenced many of the Second Generation New York School little magazines and presses.

The Full Court Press files consist of all known correspondence, manuscripts, proofs, production material, promotion files, and business records. Writers published by Full Court include Joe Brainard, William Burroughs, Edwin Denby, Larry Fagin, Allen Ginsberg, John Godfrey, Frank O'Hara, Phillipe Soupault (William Carlos Williams, translator), and Tom Veitch.