TINA BARR’S WORK ARCHIVED in Special Collections Research Center at Temple University

I was invited by Margery Sly, who coordinates the Special Collections Research Center at Temple University, to archive all my poetry materials, including books, chapbooks, bound dissertation, letters from many poets with whom I had corresponded, before email, including Tom Lux, Etheridge Knight, Galway Kinnell, Clarence Major, Alice Friman, Eleanor Wilner, Shara McCallum, Archibald MacLeish, and others, as well as two New York painters, John Jacobsmeyer and Rosanna Bruno, and a screenwriter who wrote the scripts for some famous movies!

It took many weeks to go through my files and unearth letters I had forgotten I had. The archive includes publicity photos, and draft files of each of the poems from my two most recent books, as well as memorabilia, posters, framed reviews, in short anything I didn’t want to go into landfill! I don’t have any family that would have taken care of these materials, so this event was a real blessing for me. The critical mass of boxes sat in my living room for a couple of months, as we had to wait until May, when my husband and I drove up to Philadelphia to deliver the materials, which was a bit of an adventure, since it was a two day drive for us.

I am absolutely thrilled that all my poetry materials, books, chapbooks, drafts, posters, framed materials, journals and anthologies where my work has been published, are now archived at the fabulous Charles Library. The Library has green roofs, a huge atrium, and giant vaults, like bank vaults where the books and materials are stored.