Frank Ormsby papers

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Frank Ormsby papers

circa 1967-2012

https://archives.libraries.emory.edu/repositories/7/resources/3192

The Frank Ormsby papers consist of the poet-editor's personal and literary papers from 1968 to 2012. These papers catalog Ormsby's literary career as a poet, an anthologist, and a long-term editor of The Honest Ulsterman. The collection focuses on two interconnected areas of Ormsby's literary life. On one hand, the papers highlight Ormsby's output as a poet, a writer about poetry, and an editor-anthologist. On the other hand, this collection is notable for its materials relating to The Honest Ulsterman and Ormsby's role as editor of this magazine, which played an important role in the late twentieth century literary culture of Northern Ireland. Ormsby's poetry has been consistently well-received and widely acknowledged since the early 1970's. An extensive series of manuscript and typescript drafts of published and unpublished poems charts the development of the poet across time. Like many other poets in Ireland and Great Britain, Ormsby has also enjoyed a parallel career as a literary journalist. He has written many reviews and essays about other writers and collections of poetry. Apart from his writing poetry and critical prose and his magazine editing, Ormsby, as anthologist and literary editor, has produced seven anthologies or other edited volumes. Materials relating to the publication of these volumes are arranged in a distinct subseries of writing by Ormsby. Such materials include: bibliographical and biographical research materials, permissions, contents lists and indexes, drafts of introductions, and copies of primary documents. Correspondence with contributors, editors, or publishers is kept separately in the subseries for personal literary correspondence. Similarly, reviews and other printed matter relating to these texts are found in the subseries for printed material about Ormsby. His editorial work on these volumes as well as with The Honest Ulsterman has ensured a wide and varied correspondence with many important writers in Ireland and Great Britain. Though Ormsby's personal literary correspondence and his editorial correspondence relating to The Honest Ulsterman are located in two distinct series, individual letters frequently mention both the poet's own work and The Honest Ulsterman. Information related to the poet and to the magazine may be found throughout the collection. In this collection's several correspondence subseries, writers of interest include Ciaran Carson, Peter Fallon, Seamus Heaney, John Hewitt, Kathleen Jamie, Edna and Michael Longley, Derek Mahon, Medbh McGuckian, Paul Muldoon, Tom Paulin, Carol Rumens, and James Simmons, among many others. Because of the magazine's importance, both for Ormsby and Northern Irish literary culture, The Honest Ulsterman materials constitute a separate and sizeable series, which includes correspondence, author files, manuscript submissions, publications, and printed material regarding The Honest Ulsterman. Manuscript and typescript drafts of poetry and prose sent to Ormsby are divided according to those submitted for magazine publication and those shared with the poet on a more personal basis. Because friends sent material both for personal reasons and for publication, the series of writings by others is relatively small compared to The Honest Ulsterman author files and magazine submissions subseries. Anything sent with an eye towards publication has been kept in The Honest Ulsterman series. Similarly, printed material regarding the magazine is arranged separately from other printed material relating to Ormsby and his work as poet and anthologist. Other important materials include worksheets by Norman Dugdale, Seamus Heaney, Michael Longley, Paul Muldoon, Bernard MacLaverty, and James Simmons from meetings of the Belfast Group in 1971-1972. Photographs of many of the personages whose work is represented in this collection are arranged in a separate series. Unprocessed additions include writings by Ormsby, writings by others including Michael Longley and James Simmons, correspondence, and printed material.

29.375 linear feet (49 boxes)

eng, Latn

Emory University. Special Collections and Archives

Information

SNAC Resource ID: 6722834

Emory University. Special Collections and Archives

Related Entities

There are 14 Entities related to this resource.

Heaney, Seamus, 1939-2013

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6kb41h6 (person)

Seamus Heaney, poet, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, was born in April 1939, the eldest of nine children. His father owned and worked a small farm in County Derry in Northern Ireland. At the age of twelve he won a scholarship to St. Columb's College, a Catholic boarding school situated in the city of Derry, From 1957 he lived in Belfast, moving in 1972 to the Irish Republic, where he now lives. His poems first came to public attention in the mid-1960s when he was active as one of a gro...

Longley, Edna.

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w67h32zp (person)

Ormsby, Frank, 1947-....

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6dz2hjb (person)

Frank Ormsby (1947- ), Irish poet and editor. From the description of Frank Ormsby papers, circa 1967-2004. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 122463407 ...

Jamie, Kathleen, 1962-....

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w64v023v (person)

McGuckian, Medbh, 1950-....

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6j96zg1 (person)

Medbh McGuckian was born in 1950 in Belfast, Northern Ireland. She received her Bachelor of Arts degree from Queen's University, Belfast, in 1972 and earned her Masters in Arts from the same institution two years later. McGuckian won the National Poetry Competition prize in 1979 for "The Flitting," and she published her first two collections of poetry, Single Ladies: Sixteen Poems and Portrait of Joanna, in 1980. Among her most recent collections are Had I a Thousand Lives, The Book of the Angel...

Carson, Ciarán (1948- ).

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w64f38cx (person)

Ciaran Gerard Carson was born in Belfast on 9 October 1948. He attended St. Mary's Christian Brothers' School in Belfast before going on to Queens University where he graduated with honors in July 197 1. In 1974-1975 he taught school in Belfast; before joining the Northern Ireland Arts Council as Traditional Arts Officer. In 1976, Carson received the Eric Gregory Award for his first collection of poems, The New Estate and Other Poems. Three years later he published the chapbook The Lost Explore ...

Hewitt, John Harold, 1907-1987

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6q25hp3 (person)

Simmons, James, 1933-2001

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6q24rd1 (person)

James Simmons was born in 1933 in Derry, Northern Ireland. He attended the University of Leeds as a mature student in the late 1950's where he met lifelong friends Tony Harrison and Wole Soyinka. Simmons went on to teach English at Ahamadu Bello University in Nigeria, Friends School, Lisburn, and the New University of Ulster, Coleraine, and in 1989 was named Writer in Residence at Queens University of Belfast. In 1968, Simmons founded and edited The Honest Ulsterman, a prominent literary magazin...

Fallon, Peter, 1951-....

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6w38n2q (person)

Peter Fallon, poet, editor and publisher, was born in Germany in 1951 but spent his early years on a farm in County Meath, Ireland. He graduated in 1975 with a B.A. in English Language and Literature and an H. Dip. Ed from Trinity College. In 1970, at the age of eighteen, he founded The Gallery Press that has published poems and plays by the Ireland's finest established and emerging authors. The Gallery Press is recognised as the pre-eminent literary publishing house in Ireland. Among the writer...

Paulin, Tom

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w61r88j7 (person)

Tom (Thomas Neilson) Paulin, the poet, critic, and playwright, was born in Leeds on 25 January 1949, brought up in Belfast, and educated at Hull University and Lincoln College, Oxford. He lectured in English at the University of Nottingham from 1972 until 1989, and was Reader in Poetry there from 1989 until 1994, when he moved to become G.M. Young Lecturer in English at Hertford College, Oxford. For fuller details of his life and achievements see Who's who . From the guide to the Lit...

Rumens, Carol

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6gt94b0 (person)

Epithet: poet, editor 'Literary Review' British Library Archives and Manuscripts Catalogue : Person : Description : ark:/81055/vdc_100000000352.0x00028e ...

Longley, Michael, 1939-....

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6rv1dd0 (person)

Michael Longley was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, on July 27, 1939. He attended Malone Primary School and the Royal Belfast Academical Institution, before going on to Trinity College, Dublin, where he read Classics. After graduating with honors in 1963, he held a variety of teaching positions in Blackrock, Dublin, London, and Belfast. It was while teaching in Belfast that Longley first attended Philip Hobsbaum's informal gatherings of writers known simply as "the group." There he and other ...

Muldoon, Paul

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w63b6r4c (person)

Paul Muldoon was born in County Armagh in 1951. He attended Queen's University in Belfast where he studied English literature under Seamus Heaney. In 1973, the year he graduated from Queen's, Faber and Faber published his first collection of poems. From 1973 to 1986 he worked as a radio and television producer for BBC Northern Ireland. He moved to the United States in 1987 and has held various university teaching posts. He currently lives in New Jersey and is the Howard G. B. Clark '21 Professor...

Mahon, Derek, 1941-....

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6hh7rmg (person)

Derek Mahon (1941- ), poet, born in Belfast, Northern Ireland. From the description of Derek Mahon papers, circa 1948-2008. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 122503847 Irish poet Derek Mahon met Louis Asekoff in the early 1960s while they were students at Trinity College in Dublin. Louis Asekoff (1939- ), poet and educator, currently coordinates the M.F.A. Program in Poetry at Brooklyn College. His poems have appeared in many magazines, including THE NEW YORKER, POETRY, TIKKUN,...