Address:
Richard Tillinghast Papers, 1887-2008 (majority within 1960-2008)
Using These Materials
- Restrictions:
- The collections is open for research.
Summary
- Creator:
- Tillinghast, Richard
- Abstract:
- Richard Tillinghas is a poet and critic based in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He is known for his employment of stylistic techniques to explore tracel, history, lanscapes, and the evolution of personal relationships. He was an active in the counterculture movement, and produced several published collections of poetry. Tillinghast claimed that his writings were primarily inspired by everyday experiences, which he interpreted in "an unusual way". In addition to writing, Tillinghast taught at both Harvard and San Quentin Prison, as well as at the University of Michigan. He travelled extensively, and now lives in rural Ireland. The Richard Tillinghast Papers contain materials from throughout Tillinghast's career, including extensive correspondence, manuscripts, and critical pieces. A large section of the collection is dedicated to the scrapbooks and journals spanning many years, and in which Tillinghast details his writing, work, and travels.
- Extent:
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22 Linear Feet
21 records boxes, 1 oversize box - Authors:
- Finding aid processed by Tyson Koenig and Anna Johns, 2010-2011. Encoded to ArchivesSpace by Hilary Severyn, February 2018.
Background
- Scope and Content:
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The Richard Tillinghast Papers consist of a wide variety of materials from across the length of Tillinghast's career. The collection contains a large amount of correspondence with colleagues, family, friends, publishers, and others involved with his career, a voluminous amount of manuscripts for his many poems, essays, critical pieces, and other writings, and material related to his professional work as a poet and professor as well as his personal life and that of his family. The largest element of the collection is the many manuscripts and drafts of Tillinghast's poems and other published writings, as well as the scrapbook-like journals he kept for many years documenting his travels, work, and writing. The Richard Tillinghast Papers are divided into seven series: Name and Topical, Personal, Professional, Writings and Manuscripts, Journals and Diaries, Clippings and Reviews, and Audiovisual.
The Name and Topical series contains approximately 3.25 linear feet, Boxes 1-4, consisting mainly of correspondence with fellow authors, colleagues, academics, friends, and publishers. Although largely organized by names, a few organizations with which Tillinghast corresponded significantly are included as topics as well. Relevant photographs, clippings, and ephemera are generally kept with related names and topics. The series is arranged alphabetically by name. Each name or topic is given a folder as long as there are at least three letters of correspondence or if the person is of significant status. Names or topics that do not meet these minimum requirements are filed by letter in the alphabet. This series also contains some unidentified correspondence due to illegible signatures on letters.
Tillinghast's largest correspondents include David Freidberg, Rachel Hadas, Donald Hall, Alan Williamson, and Wesleyan University Press, which published several of his books. Other notable correspondents include William Bolcom and Joan Morris, Billy Collins, James Dickey, Annie Dillard, Shelby Foote, George Garrett, Allen Ginsberg, Robert Haas, Seamus Heaney, James Laughlin, Robert Lowell and Elizabeth Hardwick, Robert Pinsky, Gary Snyder, Chase Twichell, and Robert Penn Warren.
The Personal series contains approximately 1 linear foot, Boxes 4-5, and includes a variety of materials related to Tillinghast's early life and family. Much of the series consists of correspondence with family members and close personal friends, arranged chronologically. Some correspondence of Tillinghast's family members, especially his grandparents, that dates from before his birth is also included. Among these are a letter to his grandfather A. J. Williford, a prominent public figure in the Memphis area, from Theodore Roosevelt. The series also contains materials from Tillinghast's childhood, and some of his academic work prior to graduate school, especially from his undergraduate days at the University of the South (Sewanee) in Tennessee. More general materials related to his time at Sewanee and at graduate school at Harvard are also included. The series also contains genealogical information and photographs on both Tillinghast's father's and mother's families compiled by relatives, and other miscellaneous personal materials.
The Professional series contains approximately 2 linear feet, Boxes 5-7, and includes materials related to Tillinghast's work both as a professor at the University of Michigan and as a poet and lecturer more generally. The largest part of the series is correspondence, logistical and publicity information, and other material related to Tillinghast's travels around the United States and abroad to conduct poetry readings at college and universities, bookstores, and other locations. This material is arranged by state, and within each state every institution for which there was a significant amount of correspondence or other information is given its own folder(s). Readings which Tillinghast gave in Ireland follow the US states. This series also contains correspondence with many publishers and publications regarding publication of Tillinghast's poems and essays. Because it is with such a wide variety of entities, this correspondene was left together rather than being split in Name and Topical. There is thus some overlap with Name and Topical, as well as correspondence in the Writings and Manuscripts series. Other materials in this series include some teaching materials, material related to projects Tillinghast conducted as a professor, materials on writers' conferences he attended and/or organized, and materials related to his work in Ireland and international travel.
The Writings and Manuscripts series contains approximately 6.75 linear feet, Boxes 7-15, and contains materials from Tillinghast's writings throughout his career. The series contains nine subseries: Poetry, Published Books of Poetry, Novels, Editorial Work, Criticism, Essays, Talks and Lectures, Robert Lowell, and Other.
The Poetry subseries consists largely of manuscripts of Tillinghast's poems from drafts, and revisions made by Tillinghast, which show the development of his work over time. Occasionally, correspondence related to the development of the poems is included as well. Undated manuscripts are grouped together at the end of the series, which also contains manuscripts of unpublished books of poetry and photocopies of published poems. Materials were generally kept together in the groupings in which Tillinghast had arranged them, which means related materials are sometimes dispersed throughout the series. For example, when a large number of copies of poems were placed together, they were placed in a single folder or set of folders. The same is true, though to a lesser degree, for other materials in this series. A limited amount of correspondence appears alongside the manuscripts.
The Published Books of Poetry subseries contains materials related to many of Tilinghast's published works, arranged chronologically by book. The series contains drafts, manuscripts, galleys, copies, signatures, and correspondence with publishers and others. The amount of material for each book varies considerably, and for none is there enough material to show the complete development of the book. It is important to note that the manuscript entitled "They Gambled For Your Clothes" was renamed as "The New Life" before eventually being published. Earlier manuscripts can be found in the Poetry subseries. Many of the individual poems in each book also have files in the Poetry subseries.
The Novels subseries consists of a manuscript for a never-published novel by Tillinghast, as well as drafts and fragments of another unpublished novel or short story.
The Editorial Work subseries contains material related to Tillinghast's service as editor of an edition of the literary magazine Ploughshares, mainly correspondence and manuscripts. Correspondents are arranged alphabetically.
The Criticism subseries consists primarily of book reviews Tillinghast wrote for a wide variety of academic and popular publications, arranged chronologically. Materials include manuscripts and drafts of the reviews and correspondence with publishers and publications. The subseries also includes similar materials on various other works of criticism published in a variety of publications. Publications for which there was not a significant amount of materials are grouped together as "various." The subseries also contains materials of the same nature as those in the Published Books of Poetry subseries for one published book of criticism by Tillinghast.
The Essays subseries contains material similar to that on book reviews in the Criticism subseries, but for essay on literary and travel topics by Tillinghast published in various publications, arranged chronolgoically. A large amount of these essays were travel pieces for the New York Times, as well as a large amount of writing on Irish literature and culture for a number of publications. Folders on many of the travel pieces also contain a variety of tourist materials and other ephemera from the locations about which the essays were written. Those essays for which there were not a large amount of materials are grouped together as "various." Manuscripts and materials related to Tillinghast's Finding Ireland are grouped following the essays, as well as working manuscripts and correspondence related to "The Istanbul Book", an as-yet unpublished book.
The Talks and Lectures subseries contains manuscripts of a few talks and lectures given by Tillinghast.
The Robert Lowell subseries contains all of Tillinghast's writings on Robert Lowell, arranged by type and chronologically therein. Lowell was a mentor to Tillinghast at Harvard and Tillinghast wrote his Ph.D. thesis on Lowell as well as a literary biography of him. Because of the importance of Lowell in Tillinghast's work, these writings are grouped together. This subseries contains book reviews, essays, a lecture, and various Lowell-related clippings and articles.
The Other subseries contains a few other writings and manuscripts by Tillinghast that do not fit into any of the other subseries, such as an interview, a travel guide, and an autobiography Tillinghast provided to Gale.
The Clippings and Reviews series contains approximately 0.25 linear feet, Box 15, of primarily clippings and photocopies of reviews of Tillinghast's published books of poetry, arranged by book. The series also contains miscellaneous clippings about Tillinghast from throughtout his career.
The Journals and Diaries series contains 7 linear feet, Boxes 15-20, of Tillinghast's journals or diaries from throughout his career, arranged chronologically by decade, though the bulk are from the 1990s and 2000s. These books contain a wide variety of materials: notes on and drafts of poems, materials related to teaching, such as notes on grading and class preparation, notes from Tillinghast's extensive travels, clippings and photographs pasted in, and a wide range of other content. The earliest journals, from Tillinghast's undergraduate days, are primarily his class notes. The journals appear to have been kept as "catch-all" books that served a wide variety of professional and personal purposes. They are in a wide variety of physical formats. When the dates of a journal could not be determined, a guess was made based on the other journals near it and on content. Since the dates of journals occasionally overlap, no attempt was made to arrange them chronologically beyond the level of decade. The varied nature of these books mean that they reveal much about Tillinghast's writing, his work, and his life in general in the years in which they were kept.
The Audiovisual series contains1 linear foot, Box 21, of primarily audio and videocassettes, as well as two CDs. Some of the audio and videocassettes are of Tillinghast giving poetry readings or of projects he participated in or coordinated. The bulk of the collection is recordings of class meetings for two classes Tillinghast taught, the Beat Generation and Poets Live, from January to April 1995.
- Biographical / Historical:
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Richard Tillinghast is a poet and critic based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, whose works employ a number of stylistic techniques to explore travel, history, the landscape, and the evolution of personal relationships. Tillinghast evinces a "quiet, modest, witty [speech] while he talks about the oddness of the ordinary experiences of life," observed Poetry contributor Robert Watson. The critic remarked that the experiences Tillinghast presents "have the quality of a collage or surrealistic film: waking states of mind shift to dream states, to memories, memories seem to merge with fantasy or vision." Alan Williamson in Parnassus thought that the author's work "is poetry carefully made, phrase by phrase, so that it often succeeds in incising itself on one's memory." In a Poetry Flash review published on Tillinghast's Web site, Williamson declared: "Though involved with large questions, especially political ones, Tillinghast has always been first and foremost, a poet of the senses."
Born in Memphis and educated at the University of the South and Harvard, Tillinghast was at first a poet of the counterculture. To quote Williamson, his early work demonstrated an "insistence on giving the senses and the imagination more place in life, the schematic intellect less." In works such as Sleep Watch and The Knife and Other Poems, the author evokes such varied muses as Baudelaire and Janis Joplin as he ponders the past and his personal loss of ideals. In a review of The Knife and Other Poems, New York Times Book Review correspondent Bruce Bennett suggested that, despite the sense of malaise permeating the work, "there's an exhilarating lucidity in the language, a freshness in the form of these poems that qualifies their somber message." Bennett concluded that Tillinghast's poems "bear witness to the anguish of the isolate soul wandering through realms of unrelation."
In Our Flag Was Still There, Tillinghast's 1984 collection, the author "writes with a new confidence, direction, and stylistic maturity," commented Thomas Swiss in the Sewanee Review. The focal point of the book is "Sewanee in Ruins," a long poem that combines journals, biographical sources, letters, and Tillinghast's own experiences to deliver a broad portrait of the University of the South. "The poem evolves into an elaborate meditation, beginning with the destruction of the University of the South during the Civil War and finally projecting a vision of a future after nuclear war in the same setting," summarized Swiss. While New York Times Book Review contributor Paul Breslin remarked that the author occasionally "rambles on too long"and "runs the risk . . . of writing an alumni magazine piece," he observed that Tillinghast "escapes that fate by combining his documentary sources to establish a cumulative portrait of a way of life." Swiss also noted, similar to previous criticism of Tillinghast's work, a slow deliberateness to the poet's language: "Tillinghast's habitual listing of images and his linking of adjectives slows the poem, but not often and not in a way that detracts from its impact."
The Stonecutter's Hand, Tillinghast's 1994 collection, treats a range of historical topics. For Tillnghast, "history . . . has never been a record of events detached from a speaker's current environment and mood--the past is ever-present in architecture, landscape and the 'inner / Cosmos' of human memory," according to Mark Jackson in the Boston Book Review. Jackson maintained that the poems of The Stonecutter's Hand "view history from a more intimate and self-reflexive perspective" than Tillinghast's earlier poetry, and the critic concluded that The Stonecutter's Hand "reaffirms [Tillinghast's] status as a major talent." In the Michigan Quarterly Review, as quoted on Tillinghast's Web site, Bruce Bond called the book "a thoughtful exploration of the compulsion to travel, the fearful pleasure of 'crossing boundaries,' including the temporal and metaphysical."
"Almost everything I write is based on experiences I've had or those in everyday life that are interpreted in an unusual way," Tillinghast commented in The Observer Eccentric. Teaching has also played an integral part in Tillinghast's career--he has taught literature and poetry classes at such varied locales as Harvard and San Quentin Prison, and he is now a professor of English and creative writing at the University of Michigan. The poems in Six Mile Mountain find him reflecting on such mid-life issues as familial memory and the joy of cultural exploration abroad. On Tillinghast's web site, Eamon Grennan stated that the poems in Six Mile Mountain "wear well, testament to a civilized sensibility taking his own and the world's pulse."Bruce Bond concluded: "Tillinghast's poems are compassionate and self-aware, generous with their attentions, humbled and delighted by the world's plenitude, sweetened by loss, haunted by a reliquary of things and a shadowy imagination of hands that made them." (http://galenet.galegroup.com, retrieved May 26, 2011).
Tillinghast's poems are informed by his travels, which have been supported by grants from the Creative Arts Institute, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Mary Roberts Rinehart Foundation, and the Michigan Council for the Arts, as well as fellowships from the American Research Institute, the British Council, and the Irish Arts Council. He has also received the Amy Lowell Traveling Poetry Fellowship. The winner of the Ann Stanford Prize for Poetry and the James Dickey Poetry Prize, Tillinghast was nominated for the National Book Critics Circle's Nona Balakian Award for Excellence in Book Reviewing. He has reviewed contemporary poetry extensively for the New York Times Book Review as well as for the New Criterion and the Irish Times.
Tillinghast is also the author of Robert Lowell's Life and Work: Damaged Grandeur (1996) and the essay collections Poetry and What Is Real (2004) and Finding Ireland: A Poet's Explorations of Irish Literature and Culture (2008). He is the editor of A Visit to the Gallery (1997), an anthology of ekphrastic poems responding to paintings at the Museum of Art at the University of Michigan.
In 2000 Tillinghast founded the Bear River Writers Conference, which he directed until 2005. He has taught at Harvard University, the University of California at Berkeley, and the University of Michigan. He lives in rural Ireland.
(http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/richard-tillinghast, retrieved May 26, 2011)
- Acquisition Information:
- The bulk of this collection was acquired from Richard Tillinghast in 2005; with periodic additions expected to continue.
- Processing information:
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Processed by Tyson Koenig and Anne Johns, 2010-2011; Jacqueline O'Shea, 2011; and Kathleen Dow.
- Arrangement:
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The Richard Tillinghast Papers are divided into seven series: Name and Topical, Personal, Professional, Writings and Manuscripts, Journals and Diaries, Clippings and Reviews, and Auidiovisual.
- Rules or Conventions:
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Contents
Using These Materials
- RESTRICTIONS:
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The collections is open for research.
- USE & PERMISSIONS:
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Copyright has not been transferred to the Regents of the University of Michigan. Permission to publish must be obtained from the copyright holders.
- PREFERRED CITATION:
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Richard Tillinghast Papers, University of Michigan Library (Special Collections Library)