Explores critical and creative responses to the contemporary poetry archive Provides an innovative new dialogue between critics and creative writers on the value and practice of the literary archiveExpandes the scope for understanding perspectives on, and the opposition between, creative and critical relations to archival materialsOpens up a new cross-disciplinary agenda for thinking the archive as both a source for scholarship and a source of inspiration for creative practiceThese 13 newly commissioned chapters examine the impact of archival poetry collections on both literary scholarship and poetic practice. They examine what we can learn from the drafts, notebooks and personal libraries left behind by poets and look at the ways in which the growth of poetry archives has changed the way poets think about their work. The contributing poets and scholars – including Susan Howe, Sean O’Brien and George Szirtes – present an in-depth account of the significance of poetry archives for contemporary literature. The collection provides a new cross-disciplinary agenda for thinking about the archive as both a source for scholarship and inspiration for creative practice.

Are a poet’s manuscripts prototypes? scaffolding? medals of honour? What meanings does the institutional act of archiving produce? From modernism’s ambiguous collectability to reactions by contemporary poets coming to terms with the shock of being archived, this is a valuable set of reflections on the archive, and on poetry. * Richard Price, The British Library *

Linda Anderson is Professor of Modern English and American Literature at Newcastle University where she is also Director of the Newcastle Centre for the Literary Arts. She is the author of Autobiography (2002; 2nd edition, 2010), Women and Autobiography in the Twentieth Century (1997) and has edited Elizabeth Bishop: Poet of the Periphery (2002) with Jo Shapcott.. Her poetry pamphlet, Greenhouse is published with Mariscat in 2013. Dr Mark Byers is Lecturer in Contemporary Poetry at Newcastle University. He is the author of Charles Olson and American Modernism: The Practice of the Self (Oxford University Press, 2018). Dr Ahren Warner is a Vice-Chancellor’s Research Fellow at Loughborough University. Widely published as a poet, editor and critic, his recent books include Confer (Bloodaxe, 2011) and Pretty (Bloodaxe, 2013), for which he has received awards including an Arts Foundation Fellowship (2012) and two Poetry Book Society Recommendations. He is also Poetry Editor of Poetry London, the leading independent poetry magazine in the UK and an Arts Council England National Portfolio Organisation.