Correspondence of Michael Davidson, poet, Professor Emeritus of American literature, and first curator of the Archive for New Poetry at the UC San Diego Library.

Michael Davidson was born on December 18, 1944 in Oakland, California. Davidson attended graduate school at the University of Buffalo from 1968-1969. Davidson has written eight books of poetry, notably including The Landing of Rochambeau. He has also created many works of prose and collaborated with other poets, including, Lyn Hejinian, Ron Silliman, and Barrett Watten. Davidson has also focused on disability issues, authoring many critical works such as Distressing Language: Disability and the Poetics of Error, and Invalid Modernism: Disability and the Missing Body of the Aesthetic. Davidson's topics of study include modern poetry, cultural studies, gender studies, and modern American literature. Davidson also works as a literary theorist and an editor, and edited George Oppen's New Collected Poems. Michael Davidson was the first curator of the Archive of New Poetry (ANP) at the UC San Diego Library, Special Collections & Archives (SC&A). Davidson was the creator of many primary records preserved in the Archive for New Poetry Curator's files (RSS 1034), also held in SC&A. Davidson began as a post-doctoral appointee in 1974. Two years later he was permanently hired by the Library to serve as "Associate Research Historian," the official title for the ANP curator. Davidson strongly influenced the shape and vision of the ANP, encouraging and aiding in the acquisition of a number of its most significant papers and collections. Throughout most of his term at the library, Davidson also taught in the Department of Literature. In 1985, after receiving tenure in the Literature Department, he resigned his position at the ANP in order to teach literature full-time.

2.6 Linear feet (7 archives boxes)

Publication rights are held by the creator of the collection.