Richard Wilmarth Papers (Mss. Gr. 165)

Series 1. Subject File
Box 1-3, Folder 1-55
The Subject File Series includes a variety of records related to Richard Wilmarth's career as a poet. Of special interest are the collection of critiques and reviews of Wilmarth's poetry. This includes comments from URI faculty and printed reviews. Among those journals in which his works were reviewed are The Iconoclast, HELTER SKELTER, Samisdat, Dog River Review, Heathen Zine, and Plastic Tower.

Wilmarth's early self-published poetry and some poems published in periodicals can be found in the folders labeled "Publications". His poetry published by his own publication organ, The Dead Metaphor Press, can be found in Series V. Also found in this series are Wilmarth's appointment books, a collection of historical data and information on the city of Raleigh, North Carolina (1980-1990), handbills, advertisements announcing some of Wilmarth’s speaking engagements, and a few photographs of Wilmarth and other poets.

The records are arranged alphabetically by subject or type of material.

Series 2. Manuscripts
Box 4-11, Folder 1-237
The Manuscript Series includes a variety of poetic materials including handwritten and typed drafts, notes, and preliminary versions of both his published and unpublished works. Distinct from the notebooks, the Manuscript Series often includes several versions of a work, with notes, addenda, and corrections. While many of these manuscripts illustrate the evolution of published works, the contents also includes unpublished items. Exemplary of the latter are the book length manuscript for Confessions of a Red Sox Fan, States, and Raleigh. Confessions of a Red Sox Fan, set during the 1995 pennant race, was scheduled for publication by Commonwealth Publications of Edmonton, Alberta. Unfortunately, Commonwealth went out of business. The book was never published. A lengthy excerpt from the manuscript appeared in the Waltham, Massachusetts based web site, The Buffalo Head Society, a "Red Sox Journal", in 1996, and is available online at Confessions of a Red Sox Fan. A copy of the Buffalo Head Society excerpt is included in the Manuscript Series. The original handwritten draft and a typescript copy of the complete work, including laudatory comments by sports writers and fans are also in this series.

Most of the poems and stories that were printed from Wilmarth's computer have been stamped with a date that was provided by Richard when he organized his manuscripts. Some dates on the manuscripts that are enclosed in brackets were ascertained by the archivist while processing the collection. The drafts, typed copies, and pristine versions of the poems and stories are filed alphabetically by title. At the beginning of each letter of the alphabet is a folder that contains manuscripts whose title begins with that specific letter. Titled and untitled works (filed by the first word of the text) are filed together in alphabetical order within the folder. The articles a, an, and the, were not used as filing terms, (e.g. The Black Cat is filed under Black). The same work might also be filed in more than place if we were not able to discern the final title for the work. For example, Confessions of a Red Sox Fan is filed under its first iteration "Red Sox Fan."

Series 3. Notebooks
Box 12-18, Folder 1-50
Notebooks comprise an important element of the Wilmarth collection. The notebooks contain handwritten drafts of poetry, examples of self-reflection, observations on current events, and outlines for Wilmarth’s writing. Some notebooks contain chronological lists of poems submitted to specific publishers. The notebooks in this series have been arranged in chronological order. There may be some overlap of dates within this arrangement. The first date of the notebook is used in determining the chronological order.

Series 4. Correspondence
Box 19-24, Folder 1-306
The extensive Correspondence Series is organized into two sub series, General and Personal. Correspondence includes letters, cards, postcards and notes. Subjects discussed in this series include poetic styles, philosophy and publishing outlets. There are letters from presses to which Wilmarth submitted his poetry and prose, and letters with authors published by the Dead Metaphor Press. Some also cover the vicissitudes of life as a poet. Among those represented in the General Correspondence are Donald Hall, Ed Sanders, (poet and members of the 60’s rock band the Fugs), Tracy Davis, John McKernan, and Anselm Hollo.

Personal Correspondence encompasses letters from family and friends, including many with close personal relationships with Wilmarth. In some instances, correspondence that began as general in nature evolved into personal exchanges, and these are filed with the Personal Correspondence. Access to the Personal correspondence, because of its intimate or personal nature, is restricted from general research until 2025. Requests for access for specific research inquiries may be granted by the Head of Special Collections on a case by case basis. The folder title listing of correspondents for this sub series is not included in this register. Inquiries should be addressed to the Head of Special Collections.

Series 5. Dead Metaphor Press
Box 25-27, Folder 1-52
The records in this series relate to the production of publications by Wilmarth's Dead Metaphor Press. The press was established in 1992 with the specific purpose to "publish carefully constructed work and have it enter the historical record' " (see folder #1). The Dead Metaphor Press chapbooks series published the works of John McKernan, Tracy Davis, Anselm Hollo, Randy Roark, Mark Ducharme, Maureen Foley and Bill Morgan.

The materials, with the exception of the first few folders, have been separated into two sub-series. The first sub-series is "Books-Production", the second is "Books-Published". Typical materials in the Production sub-series include text copy, book mock-ups, cover designs, camera ready copy, production notes, and sometimes correspondence with the authors. Typical material in the Published sub-series consists two copies of the booklet, numbered and or signed. Many of the original manuscripts for these productions can be found in Series II, Manuscripts. The folders for each sub-series are arranged alphabetically by the title of the publication.

Books-Production

Books-Published

Series 6. Thesis
Box 28, Folder 1-7
This Series contains copies of Richard Wilmarth's MA thesis for University of Rhode Island completed in 1991and the thesis he completed for his MFA at the Naropa Institute in 1993. The series is arranged in chronological order.

Series 7. Electronic Records
These records consist of 52 floppy disks (3.25") in Mac Word 5.1. The disks are labeled as containing the text for the Dead Metaphor Press publications, Wilmarth's thesis, and his poetry. There is also one 100mb ZIP disk labeled as containing "back up disk of writing folders" January 2000 to August 200. The disks are in no particular order.

A sound recording of the Richard Wilmarth Memorial played on "Art Aloud" at KGNU, Boulder, Colorado is available online. The recording is broken into seven tracks and has been encoded using the MP3 file format.