Collection Dates: 1957 --
32.5 linear ft.
This document describes a collection of materials held
by the
Special Collections Department
University of Iowa Libraries
Iowa City, Iowa 52242-1420
Phone: 319-335-5921
Fax: 319-335-5900
e-mail: lib-spec@uiowa.edu
Posted to Internet: 2001
Addenda:
Acquisition
Note: This
collection was donated to the University of Iowa by Mr. Turco in 2001, with addendae arriving periodically after that.
Access
and Restrictions:
Audio Material: A separate series, Audiocasette
boxes 1-6.
Digital Surrogates: Except where indicated, this document describes but
does not reproduce the actual text, images and objects which make up this
collection. Materials are available only in the Special Collections
Department.
Copyright: Please
read The University of Iowa Libraries' statement on "Property Rights, Copyright Law, and Permissions to Use Unpublished
Materials"
Use of Collections: The University
of Iowa Libraries supports access to the materials, published and unpublished,
in its collections. Nonetheless, access to some items may be restricted by
their fragile condition or by contractual agreement with donors, and it may
not be possible at all times to provide appropriate machinery for reading,
viewing or accessing non-paper-based materials. Please read our Use
of Manuscripts Statement.
Table of Contents
SERIES 6: Writers' conferences, poetry festivals, readings, invited lectureships and the like
Lewis Turco was born in Buffalo, New York on May 2, 1934. He received his BA from the University of Connecticut in 1959 and his MA from the University of Iowa in 1962. He taught at Fenn College (later Cleveland State University) where he founded the Cleveland Poetry Center, of which he was the director until 1964. He then served as Assistant Professor at Hillsdale College in 1964-65. From 1965 until 1996, he taught at SUNY-Oswego, where he was also Poet-in-Residence from 1995 until his retirement in 1996. At SUNY-Oswego he founded and directed the Program in the Writing Arts.
Turco began his publishing career in 1960, with the publication of First Poems. Sometimes using the pseudonym Wesli Court (an anagram of Lewis Turco), he has continued to publish poetry, books about poetry, such as the New Book of Forms and Visions and Revisions of American Poetry, and other works related to the writing arts. He has collaborated with other artists on such projects as "While the Spider Slept," a ballet based upon his poem "November 22, 1963," performed by the Swedish Ballet and the Royal Winnipeg Ballet; The Fog, a chamber opera with Dutch composer Walter Hekster; and Bordello: PoemPrints with printmaker George O'Connell.
He has received many awards, among them the Distinguished Alumnus Award from the Alumni Association of the University of Connecticut, the Bordighera Poetry Prize, an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from Ashland University, and the John Ciardi Award for Lifetime Achievement in Poetry. He is now retired from University teaching and from operating an antiquarian bookshop in Maine.
Mr. Turco can be reached at e-mail jturco@adelphia.net
His blog is www.lewisturco.net
See: Klebba, Caryn E. Ed. Directory of American Scholars. Detroit: Gale Group, 2002. Vol. II, p. 511.
Included in this collection are many handwritten copies of Turco's poetry, plays, short stories and essays; extensive correspondence with other writers (some of these are photocopies); correspondence with publishers, agents, and periodicals; general correspondence; drafts and proofs of his books; some files from his years of teaching at colleges and universities, including some from Cleveland Poetry Center. Of particular interest is the Palmer Institute of Authorship instruction book and the accompanying assignment book. Also included is a collection of audiotapes of poetry readings, original recordings made at clubs and public poetry readings. Conrad Aiken, Marianne Moore, Robert Penn Warren, Mona van Duyn, Elizabeth Bishop, Howard Nemerov, Gwendolyn Brooks, and W. D. Snodgrass are only a few of the poets represented in this collection of over one hundred audiocasettes.
Related Materials
Items relating to the Cleveland Poetry Center are deposited at Cleveland State Univeristy. See the Lewis Turco Collection at Cleveland State.
The Lewis Turco and George O'Connell Christmas card collection at Smithsonian.
Interview (January 12, 2010) with Turco on Mike Chasar's Poetry and Popular Culture blog: http://mikechasar.blogspot.com/
JRoethler 2/02
Box 1
