Guide to the Archie Ammons Papers,
1945-2000

Poet and university professor Archie Randolph Ammons was born near Whiteville, N.C., in 1926. He earned a reputation as one of the nation's leading poets in the decades after he joined the Cornell University faculty in 1963, becoming Goldwin Smith Professor of Poetry a decade later. Recipient of the Bollingen Prize and the National Book Award and Critics Circle Award for poetry, Ammons was one of the first recipients of a MacArthur Foundation fellowship in 1981.

Primarily incoming correspondence from students and teaching colleagues; fellow poets and other literary figures; and a few family members. The letters frequently enclose chapbooks and typescript or manuscript poetry for review; snapshots of family members; and formal and informal photographs of Ammons and other literary figures. Envelopes frequently bear Ammons's draft replies to letters received as well as draft poetry, lecture notes, and other matter. The papers provide sources for the study of modern American poetry, including the publication of poetry in journals such as The Hudson Review, The Manhattan Review, and The Bluefish; and in such Southern literary journals as The Pembroke Magazine and The North Carolina Literary Review. Letters from W. W. Norton & Company discuss the publication of Ammons' own books of poetry, while others highlight activities of such small presses as Palaemon Press Limited and the Jackpine Press. Letters and records of writers conferences sponsored at the Reynolds Homestead Learning Center in Critz, Va., underscore Ammons' role in Southern regional literature. Letters, departmental memoranda, and "Recommendations" files detail his role in Cornell's Department of English and its creative writing program. And letters from 1981 and later record his relationship with the MacArthur Foundation.

Also included are sixty-eight journals, in which Ammons interfiled journal entries, poems, and correspondence. They detail Ammons' growth as a poet, and his relationship with his mentor Josephine Miles and editor John Benedict. Literary manuscripts include published and unpublished poetry.

Journal #1, Journal (letters to Phyllis) 1947-1949, photographs: Archie and son John, Archie and grandson, Archie.

Correspondence, 1997-1998; 25 watercolor paintings dating from the late 1970s to the late 1980s.

Major correspondents include John G. Benedict, James Bertolino, Philip E. Booth, Frederick Buell, David Burak, James Burgess, Kathryn Stripling Byer, Stephen Cushman, Ephim Fogel, Kenneth Frazelle, Philip H. Fried, Alice Fulton, William Harmon, David Ardene Hinton, Josephine Jacobsen, Phyllis Janowitz, Cathrael Kazin, Milton Kessler, David Lehman, Gay Leonhardt, Michael McFee, Jim Merod, Frederick Morgan, Reeve Parker, Robert Dale Schultz, John E. Sitter, Mark Soifer, Stephen Tapscott, Helen Hennessy Vendler, Hugh Walthall, Emily Herring Wilson, and Stuart Wright.