The George Edward Woodberry Poetry Room is a special collections room of the

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Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

Cambridge, Massachusetts Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. As part of the Boston metropolitan area, the cities population of the 2020 U.S. census was 118,403, making it the fourth most populous city in the state, behind Boston, ...

Overview

Named for literary critic and poet

George Edward Woodberry George Edward Woodberry, Litt. D., LL. D. (May 12, 1855 – January 2, 1930) was an American literary critic and poet.''The Book Buyer'', Volume 8, p.7, (1892) Charles Scribner's Sons, New Yor/ref> Biography Education Woodberry was born in Bev ...

, the Woodberry Poetry Room was founded in 1931 with the help of a $50,000 donation from Harvard alumnus Harry Harkness Flagler. The collection focuses on 20th and 21st century English language poets and poetry. Among its notable holdings are recordings of authors and poets reading their own works. The collection of audio recordings was initially collected by professor Frederick C. Packard, who created the Harvard Vocarium label with assistance from the Harvard Film Service. Packard, who was himself an early enthusiast of audio recordings, captured the voices of figures including performers

William Gillette William Hooker Gillette (July 24, 1853 – April 29, 1937) was an American actor-manager, playwright, and stage-manager in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He is best remembered for portraying Sherlock Holmes on stage and in a 1916 ...

Edwin Booth Edwin Thomas Booth (November 13, 1833 – June 7, 1893) was an American actor who toured throughout the United States and the major capitals of Europe, performing Shakespearean plays. In 1869, he founded Booth's Theatre in New York. Some theatri ...

, and

Florence Nightingale Florence Nightingale (; 12 May 1820 – 13 August 1910) was an English Reform movement, social reformer, statistician and the founder of modern nursing. Nightingale came to prominence while serving as a manager and trainer of nurses during t ...

, as well as writers T. S. Eliot,

E. E. Cummings Edward Estlin Cummings, who was also known as E. E. Cummings, e. e. cummings and e e cummings (October 14, 1894 - September 3, 1962), was an American poet, painter, essayist, author and playwright. He wrote approximately 2,900 poems, two autobi ...

Tennessee Williams Thomas Lanier Williams III (March 26, 1911 – February 25, 1983), known by his pen name Tennessee Williams, was an American playwright and screenwriter. Along with contemporaries Eugene O'Neill and Arthur Miller, he is considered among the thre ...

, and

W. H. Auden Wystan Hugh Auden (; 21 February 1907 – 29 September 1973) was a British-American poet. Auden's poetry was noted for its stylistic and technical achievement, its engagement with politics, morals, love, and religion, and its variety in ...

.Zecher, Henry. ''William Gillette, America's Sherlock Holmes''. Bloomington, IN: XLibris, 2011: 553. It was first located in

Widener Library The Harry Elkins Widener Memorial Library, housing some 3.5million books in its "vast and cavernous" stacks (library architecture), stacks, is the centerpiece of the Harvard College Libraries (the libraries of Harvard's Harvard Faculty of Arts an ...

before being moved to

Lamont Library Lamont Library, in the southeast corner of Harvard Yard in Cambridge, Massachusetts, houses the Harvard Library's primary undergraduate collection in humanities and social sciences. It was the first library in the United States specifically plann ...

in 1949. Finnish artist

Alvar Aalto Hugo Alvar Henrik Aalto (; 3 February 1898 – 11 May 1976) was a Finnish architect and designer. His work includes architecture, furniture, textiles and glassware, as well as sculptures and paintings. He never regarded himself as an artist, see ...

designed the new room in a Scandinavian style.

Don Share Don Share is an American poet. He is the former chief editor of ''Poetry'' magazine in Chicago. He grew up in Memphis, Tennessee. Career Share, who was named the editor-in-chief of ''Poetry'' in 2013, previously served there as Senior Editor. E ...

served as curator from 2000 until 2007. The current curator is Christina Davis.

References

External links

Woodberry Poetry Room
official web site
Woodberry Poetry Room
at

Academy of American Poets The Academy of American Poets is a national, member-supported organization that promotes poets and the art of poetry. The nonprofit organization was incorporated in the state of New York in 1934. It fosters the readership of poetry through outreac ...

Harvard Library Harvard University {{library-struct-stub