Media Note: Digital images available on request

Contacts: Marlo Welshons, University Libraries, welsh066@umn.edu, (612) 625-9148
Patty Mattern, University News Service, mattern@umn.edu, (612) 624-2801

MINNEAPOLIS / ST. PAUL (05/17/2010) -- The University of Minnesota Libraries has announced that the papers of Robert Bly -- internationally recognized poet, translator, social critic and author -- are now open to the public.

Appointments to use the Robert Bly Papers in the Elmer L. Andersen Library reading room (open Monday through Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., and Saturday, 9:00 a.m. to 1 p.m.) can be made by contacting mssref@umn.edu or (612) 624-8812. A detailed finding aid of the collection is at http://special.lib.umn.edu/findaid/xml/mss081.xml. Selected materials are available online at http://digital.lib.umn.edu/pachyderm/robertbly.

When purchased by the Libraries in 2006, the appraiser John Wronoski of Boston assessed Bly as "by any account among the most important of living poets" and his archive as "among the most extensive and complete we have encountered or of which we are aware for any author of his generation (or a subsequent generation)."

Now fully processed, the collection includes manuscripts, journals, his extensive correspondence with many writers including James Wright, Donald Hall and James Dickey, audiovisual items, photographs, publisher proofs, news clippings, scrapbooks, school assignments from childhood through Harvard and the State University of Iowa, his service in the U.S. Navy, as well as materials from his career in writing, translating and publishing poetry, prose and plays.

This comprehensive collection provides an invaluable resource to scholars and admirers of Bly's distinguished body of work and preserves the legacy of one of the world's greatest living writers. The primary source materials provide opportunities for research in many subjects, including the artistic process of creating poetry, prose, and plays; analysis of changes in 20th century poetry; Vietnam War protest documentation; Men's Movement development and continuation; translation of poetry from various original languages; and the history of 20th century publishing.