The Teacher and the Poet: Elliott Coleman:

]> ms.13 Coleman (Elliott) 1906-1980 Papers 1932-1980 Ms. 13 Cynthia H. Requardt Special Collections, The Milton S. Eisenhower Library, The Johns Hopkins University

3400 N. Charles Street Baltimore, MD 21218 USA Phone: (410) 516-8323

Machine-readable finding aid encoded by Diwakar Bhandari Finding aid written in English Coleman (Elliott) 1906-1980 Papers 1932-1980 Ms. 13 Special CollectionsThe Milton S. Eisenhower Library The Johns Hopkins University Contact Information Special Collections The Milton S. Eisenhower Library The Johns Hopkins University 3400 North Charles Street Baltimore, MD 21218 (410) 516-8323 Processed by: Cynthia H. Requardt Date completed: August 1989 Encoded by: Diwakar Bhandari

Descriptive Summary Ms. 13 Coleman (Elliott) 1906-1980 Papers 1932-1980 Coleman, Elliott , 1906-1980 Johns Hopkins University. Special Collections 3 document boxes (.5 linear feet) English The collection consist of correspondence, manuscript poems, printed materials, and photographs. It spans the years 1932 to 1980 with the bulk of the material from 1978-1979. The papers deal with Coleman's poetry. His work in literary criticism and as director of The Writing Seminars is not represented in this collection. The Hamburger Archives has the official records of The Writing Seminars during the years 1947-1953 when Coleman was there. Administrative Information Provenance

Part of this collection was donated by Elliott Coleman between 1963 and 1977. He donated the E.E. Cummings letters in 1963, the Andre Gide letter in 1975, and the Anais Nin letters in 1977. Coleman donated the manuscripts of "Mockingbirds at Fort McHenry" in 1965, "Encore" in 1965, and "Solo," "A Summer Sky," "Agony on the Chenango River," "Touch and Go," "Proses Out of the Deep," and "Proses Out of the Blue" in 1969. Coleman bequeathed to The Johns Hopkins University an oil portrait of himself by Elsa Frame Hutchins. It is hanging in the Library Office.

The remaining correspondence, poem manuscripts, and printed materials were part of Coleman's estate and donated to the Hamburger Archives on June 3, 1981 by Coleman's literary executor Louis D. Rubin, Jr. through Coleman's attorney Sandra Gohn. These manuscripts (Hamburger Archives accession number 81.18) were transferred to Special Collections January 6, 1982.

Printed materials, several with inscriptions to Elliott Coleman were added to the collection, June 1998. The materials had been filed in the Cage. The Accession Numbers are 93-94.1 and 93-94.4.

Use Restrictions

Access to this collection is unrestricted.

Permission to publish material from this collection must be requested in writing from the Manuscripts Librarian, Milton S. Eisenhower Library, The Johns Hopkins University, 3400 North Charles Street, Baltimore, Md. 21218.

Preferred Citation

Elliott Coleman Papers Ms. 13 Special Collections Milton S. Eisenhower Library The Johns Hopkins University

Biographical Note

Elliott Coleman was born on September 26, 1906 in Binghamton, New York, the son of a clergyman. He graduated from Wheaton College in 1928 and taught for 12 years at a boys school in Asheville, N.C. He then turned to theology, studying a year at the Princeton Theological School, and then Oxford University. In 1940 he went to New York to study at the General Theological Seminary. Coleman was ordained an Episcopal Deacon in the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City. While in New York, Coleman work for two publishers Henry Holt & Co. (1942-43) and Doubleday & Co. (1943-45).

In 1945 Coleman came to The Johns Hopkins University to reorganize the freshman writing course. The following year in September 1946 he founded the Department of Writing, Speech and Drama the predecessor to The Writing Seminars. He remained chairman of this department until his retirement in 1975. One of the first writers Coleman attracted to the program was Karl Shapiro, the poet. Others who came to Hopkins to work with Coleman's students were E.E. Cummings, Dylan Thomas, Katharine Anne Porter, W.H. Auden, and Robert Frost. Students of Coleman's included John Barth, Russell Baker, Julia Randall, Joseph Whitehill, Richard Kim, and Josephine Jacobsen.

Coleman was a scholar whose work dealt with the literary criticism of Marcel Proust, T.S. Eliot and James Joyce. He edited a volume of the poems of Byron, Keats, and Shelley and translated the poems of Pierre Emmanuel, Georges Poulet, and Alfredo Rizzandi. Coleman was also a poet and published more than a dozen volumes of poetry. A bibliography of his work is in Appendix 1.

Coleman died on February 23, 1980 at the Stella Maris Hospice near Baltimore. He was unmarried.

Description of Series/Container List Series 1: Personal Personal, 1963-1980 20 items

This series includes obituaries, a reminiscence of Coleman by Richard Macksey, snapshots of friends, the receipt for his cemetery plot, and his passports (1973, 1978). There are also 3 letters dealing with his admission to the Stella Maris Hospice, his Award of Merit from The Asheville School, and travel arrangements for a trip to London.

Box Contents 2 1973, 1978 passports 2 photographs 2 1977, 1978 letters 2 1980 obituaries 2 1980 The Teacher and the Poet: Elliott Coleman: by Richard Macksey 1906-1980 Series 2: Correspondence Correspondence, 1948-1980 75 items

Not much of Coleman's correspondence has survived. He often gave or threw away letters he received. It is quite likely that many other letters received by Coleman, especially those from contemporary poets, are still owned by his students and colleagues.

Included in this series are letters from E.E. Cummings (1949-1956), Andr‚ Gide (1948), and Ana‹s Nin (1974-1976) which Coleman gave to the Library. The remaining letters date from the last two years of his life and were donated after his death. These include letters from poets Josephine Jacobsen, Cindy Shearer, and Carol Rubenstein. Rubenstein also sent copies of her poems.

Box Contents 2 ?, Aubie 2 Blackmur, Richard P. 2 Coleman, John C. 2 Cummings, E.E. 2 Gide, Andr‚ 2 ?, J. 2 Jacobsen, Josephine 2 Johns Hopkins University Press 2 Leax, John 2 LeGrand, David 2 [Lynch], Michael 2 Macksey, Richard A. 2 Muller, Steven 2 Nin, Anaïs 2 Oden, Gloria 2 Polistira, Ken 2 Rosenburg, Bob (Rigg Kennedy) 2 Rubenstein, Carol 2 Shearer, Cindy Series 3: Writings Writings, 1965-1979 50 items

This series consists of notebooks, manuscript poems, and several printed copies of his later poems. The collection includes the original manuscript of "Rose Demonics, 1936-1966," and drafts of "Agony on the Chenango River" which first appeared in Poetry October 1968. This was also recorded by the University of Baltimore on the record "So" together with poems by Josephine Jacobsen and Henry Rage and edited by Stephen Wiest. Other poems are "Touch and Go" which first appeared in The Nation September 30, 1968; "Proses Out of the Deep" which first appeared in Foxfire Spring 1969; and "Proses Out of the Blue" in Cafe Solo. "Encore" was given as the Phi Beta poem at Hopkins on May 11, 1965. "Mockingbirds at Fort McHenry" was published in Pamplona, Spain in the autumn of 1963.

Later poems in this series include "Creation," "David," "Description of the Fifteenth of November: A Portrait of T.S. Eliot," "The Island," "The Seashell," Oxford Flow, Four Counties of Youth, and Poems from the Chilton Seminars.

Nineteen poems by Elliott Coleman are owned by the Rare Book and Poetry Collection of the University of New York at Buffalo.

Box Contents 2 1976 Oxford Flow: Poems of Elliott Coleman 2 1979 Four Counties of Youth: A Fiction 2 1979 Poems from the Chilton Seminars 2 Creation 2 David 2 Description of the Fifteenth of November. A Portrait of T.S. Eliot 2 The Island 2 The Seashell 2 3 Translations 2 Agony on the Chenango River 2 Encore 2 The Green Orpheus 2 Mockingbirds at Fort McHenry 2 Proses Out of the Blue 2 Proses Out of the Deep 2 Rose Demonics 2 Solo 2 A Summer Sky 2 Touch and Go 2 notebooks Series 4: Printed Material Printed Material, 1932, 1976-1980 7 items

This series is largely copies of poems published by former students. Included are works by Geof Hewitt (1976), Gary Moore (1978), Cindy Shearer (1979), and George Edward McDonogh (1980). There are 2 issues (1978, 1979) of Gargoyle published by the Cambridge Poets. In this series is Coleman's annotated copy of The Odyssey of Homer (New York: Oxford University Press, 1932).

Box Contents 1 The Odyssey of Homer 1932 2 1976 Hewitt, Geof, I Think They'll Lay My Egg Tomorrow 2 1978 Moore, Gary, He Cures by Alliteration 2 1978, 1979 Gargoyle 2 1979 Shearer, Cindy, to stephen, to mollie, to leopold a poem 2 1980 McDonough, George Edward, A Long Perspective 3 Hopkins Review Summer 1950 3 Poetry June 1959, July 1963, July 1965, October 1968 3 Trace May 1965 3 Cafe Solo Summer 1969 3 New Letters Fall 1971, Summer 1972, Summer 1976 3 Blue Moon March 1975 3 77 Antipoems. New/old Antipoems and others<lb/>Erland E. Jacobsen 3 Working the Night<lb/>New poems by John Linthicum 3 Riggwords<lb/>By Rigg Kennedy 3 Waking Up Still Pickled<lb/>Geoff Hewitt 3 In the Eye<lb/>Poems by Aaron Miller 3 Riddle and Incest<lb/>Poems by Lawrence Markert 3 A Proper Reticence<lb/>Poems by John Leax 3 Kumquat 3 Oversize in MSS workroom The Station House <lb/> by Rodger Kamenetz Oversize in MSS workroom Five songs & Two Canons <lb/>Music by Alan Stout Text by e.e. cummings