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Gansz (David) Papers
MSS 0678
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Table of contents
Languages:
English
Contributing Institution:
Special Collections & Archives, UC San Diego
9500 Gilman Drive
La Jolla 92093-0175
Title: David Gansz Papers
Identifier/Call Number: MSS 0678
Physical Description:
2.8 Linear feet
(7 archives boxes and 1 oversize folder)
Date (inclusive): 1979-2004
Abstract: Papers of David Gansz, poet, librarian, educator, and author. Mentored by Robert Kelly at Bard College, Gansz became influenced
by the Black Mountain School, the San Francisco Renaissance, and the Deep Image School. The collection contains correspondence
with prominent poets and scholars; manuscript and typescript drafts of his published book of collected poetry,
Millennial Scriptions: The Ashen Book of Logres (2000), and biographical materials including photographs, newsclippings, and reading announcements.
Acquired 2007, 2012.
David Gansz Papers, MSS 678. Special Collections & Archives, UC San Diego.
Publishing rights are held by the creator of the collection.
Scope and Content of Collection
The papers of David Gansz consist primarily of the drafts for the manuscript
Millennial Scriptions: The Ashen Book of Logres (2000). The collection also contains correspondence with poets, scholars, and colleagues and biographical materials including
newspaper clippings, book reviews, and photographs. The papers are arranged in three series: 1) CORRESPONDENCE, 2)
MILLENNIAL SCRIPTIONS: THE ASHEN BOOK OF LOGRES, and 3) BIOGRAPHICAL MATERIALS.
SERIES 1: CORRESPONDENCE
The CORRESPONDENCE series, arranged alphabetically, is comprised of correspondence both to and from prominent poets and scholars.
Among the major and well-known poets included are Mei-Mei Berssenbrugge, Diane DiPrima, Leland Hickman, Robert Kelly, Jackson
Mac Low, Gil Ott, Jerome Rothenberg, Leslie Scalapino, John Taggart, and Anne Waldman.
SERIES 2:
MILLENNIAL SCRIPTIONS: THE ASHEN BOOKS OF LOGRES (2000)
Published in 2000, the
MILLENNIAL SCRIPTIONS series contains the drafts for the published manuscript from 1980-2000. The arrangement constitutes all of the initial drafts
in chronological order as they were written in ten separate chapter units. Also included in this series is a CD,
Animadversions, created by Bill and John Storch, with a reading by David Gansz.
SERIES 3: BIOGRAPHICAL MATERIALS
Arranged alphabetically, the BIOGRAPHICAL MATERIALS series contains personal history documents including biographies, newspaper
articles, book reviews, and the Naropa Institute Allen Ginsberg Library Dedication ceremony audio recording. The series also
contains several photographs of David Ganz and others, including one of Robert Kelly taken by Gerard Malanga.
David Christopher Douglass Gansz was born May 3, 1960, in Morristown, New Jersey. He was raised in Philadelphia, where he
attended the William Penn Charter School, learning to play guitar, sing, and sight-read music. The family then moved to Greensboro,
North Carolina, when his father became Professor and Head of the Music Department at Guilford College. He returned north,
however, graduating from Westtown Friends Boarding School, just outside Philadelphia, in 1978, writing his senior paper on
the Surrealists.
Entering Bard College, he studied history with his advisor and mentor Leon Botstein. From 1980-1981, he was in residence at
Trinity College, Oxford University. He was awarded the University Diploma in Theology with Merit from the University of Kent
at Canterbury in 1981.
Gansz then returned to Bard College, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Art History in 1982, writing his senior
thesis on "Art Under Akhenaten and Nefertiti." He remained at Bard's Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts, where he studied
poetry with Robert Kelly, Gerrit Lansing, Jackson Mac Low, and prose with John Hawkes and William Gaddis. He earned his Master
of Fine Arts degree in Writing from Bard in 1986, his thesis being the book of poems entitled
Animadversions (the first book of
Millennial Scriptions).
From 1986-1993, he was Senior Contributing Editor of
Notus: New Writing magazine. During these years he was in touch with many of the poets and writers associated with the Beats, the Black Mountain
School, the Deep Image School, the San Francisco Renaissance, and the L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E School, as well as contemporaries in
the United Kingdom, and he corresponded with many of them regarding both their writings and his. Exchanges of particular note
are those with friends and fellow poets including Robert Kelly, his mentor at Bard College.
Gansz was awarded an Individual Artist's Fellowship by the The Dutchess County Arts Council in Poughkeepsie, New York, for
his book
Sin Tactics (the second book of
Millennial Scriptions) in 1987. He was an editor of scholarly book manuscripts at the Center for Japanese Studies at the University of Michigan,
Ann Arbor, and worked in the University's music, fine arts, undergraduate, and graduate libraries. In 1993 he earned a MLS
from the University of Michigan. From 1993-1995 he served as an assistant professor and first director of the new Allen Ginsberg
Library at Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado.
In 2000 Gansz published his poetic magnum opus,
Millennial Scriptions: The Ashen Book of Logres, gathering all early composed poetry with recently published materials. From 2001-2005 he was assistant professor of English
and director of the library at Wilmington College, a Quaker school in Wilmington, Ohio. During this time he was also editor
of
Educating for Peace and Social Justice (Wilmington College, 2002). In addition, he was founder, publisher, and editor-in-chief of Stone House Press (Devon, Pennsylvania),
which published his articles "Quaker Education: What Is It?" and "The Sacred Mission of Quaker Education," both in 2004. Since
2005, he has served as Associate Vice President for Academic Information and Technology at Edison State Community College,
Piqua, Ohio.
Materials contained in Box 7, Folder 4 require a listening copy to be produced and are restricted for use.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
American poetry -- 20th century
Bernstein, Charles, 1950- -- Correspondence
Corman, Cid -- Correspondence
Creeley, Robert, 1926-2005 -- Correspondence
Economou, George -- Correspondence
Kelly, Robert, 1935- -- Correspondence
Gansz, David C. D. -- Archives