Collection Guide
Collection Title:
Collection Number:
Get Items:
Schelling (Andrew) Papers
MSS 0745
View entire collection guide
Search this collection
Table of contents
Languages:
English
Contributing Institution:
Special Collections & Archives, UC San Diego
9500 Gilman Drive
La Jolla 92093-0175
Title: Andrew Schelling Papers
Identifier/Call Number: MSS 0745
Physical Description:
19.2 Linear feet
(45 archives boxes, 3 flat box folders, 1 map case folder)
Date (inclusive): 1948-2012 (bulk 1978-2012)
Abstract: Papers of Andrew Schelling, American poet, translator, editor, and teacher. The collection documents his career as a poet,
essayist, editor, ecologist, translator of classical Indian poetry, and as a professor at Naropa University. Schelling's papers
include correspondence, manuscripts, drafts, translations, teaching files, and photographs dating primarily from 1978-2012.
Audiocassette in Box 1 is restricted. Researchers must request a user copy be produced.
Scope and Content of Collection
The Andrew Schelling Papers contain biographical information, correspondence, manuscript drafts, translations, teaching files,
and photographs documenting the career of American poet and translator Andrew Schelling from 1978-2012. The Schelling Papers
are arranged in the following series: 1) BIOGRAPHICAL, 2) CORRESPONDENCE, 3) WRITINGS BY SCHELLING, 4) COLLABORATIVE WRITINGS,
5) WRITINGS BY OTHERS, 6) TEACHING FILES and 7) PHOTOGRAPHS.
SERIES 1: BIOGRAPHICAL
The BIOGRAPHICAL series contains biographical information about Schelling, his family, his publications, and interviews with
Schelling. The BIOGRAHICAL series is arranged in the following subseries: A) Biographical Materials and B) Interviews.
A) The Biographical Materials include autobiographical notes by Schelling, biographies on Schelling by other writers, Schelling's
resume and publications, and notes on his family history.
B) The Interviews subseries contains published and unpublished interviews of Schelling from 1992-2011. The interviews are
arranged in chronological order and include notes, drafts, and correspondence.
SERIES 2: CORRESPONDENCE
The CORRESPONDENCE series includes Schelling's incoming and outgoing correspondence with other poets, translators, publishers,
editors, Buddhists, family, and friends. Files may contain related correspondence by additional people, or drafts of translations
or poetry, particularly renga, or collaborative poetry. Much of the correspondence addressed to Schelling is also addressed
to poet Anne Waldman. The CORRESPONDENCE series is arranged in the following subseries: A) Alphabetical, B) Chronological
and C) Subject.
A) Alphabetical correspondence is arranged alphabetically by the correspondent's surname or corporate name. Notable correspondents
include Bob Arnold, Cid Corman, Clayton Eshleman, Mary Fabilli, Alec Finlay, Ben Friedlander, Stefan Hyner, Joanne Kyger,
Shin Yu Pai, Leslie Scalapino, Gary Snyder, Anne Waldman and Philip Whalen.
Schelling may have filed correspondence with publishers or editors under either the corporate name or the correspondent's
name and often included personal and business correspondence in the same file. Correspondence regarding a single publication
is filed with the manuscript drafts under WRITINGS BY SCHELLING or COLLABORATIVE WRITINGS. Naropa Institute correspondence
is filed in the TEACHING FILES series.
B) Chronological correspondence. From 1997-2000, Schelling kept a chronological correspondence file with copies of his outgoing
correspondence, which he numbered, annotated, and indexed by recipient surname.
C) Subject correspondence. Schelling also kept subject correspondence by multiple writers on single topics, including India,
Ireland, Jaime de Angulo,
The Satanic Verses and environmental issues.
SERIES 3: WRITINGS BY SCHELLING
The WRITINGS BY SCHELLING series consists of drafts, proofs, correspondence, notes, reviews and artwork relating to Schelling's
published and unpublished writings. The series is divided into ten subseries: A) Poetry, B) Essays, C) Interviews, D) Reviews,
E) Readings, Lectures and Panels, F) Translations, G) Editing, H) Other Writings, I) Journals and J) Notebooks.
Writings are arranged alphabetically by title. If more than one title was used for a published work, the additional titles
are included in parentheses.
A) The Poetry subseries contains drafts, notes, and correspondence regarding poems, chapbooks, and books of poetry written
by Schelling. Additional drafts of poetry can be found in the Journals and Notebooks subseries.
B) The Essays subseries includes notes, drafts, and correspondence pertaining to Schelling's essays, collections of essays,
introductions and afterwords, and biographies. Additional versions of his essays can also be found in the Readings, Lectures
and Panels subseries and in the TEACHING FILES series.
C) The Interviews subseries contains typescript interviews of poets Czeslaw Milosz, Philip Whalen, Sherwin Bitsui and Joanne
Kyger by Schelling.
D) The Reviews subseries consists of reviews written by Schelling between 1982 and 2011 on poetry, translations, and musical
works.
E) The Readings, Lectures and Panels subseries includes notes and drafts for presentations by Schelling at poetry readings,
conferences, panels, lectures, and memorials from 1985-2012. Many of his talks were also published as essays, and additional
versions may be found in the Essays subseries. Panels presented at Naropa Institute are included in this series, but class
lecture notes from Naropa are located in the TEACHING FILES series.
F) The Translations subseries contains notes, drafts, correspondence, translation worksheets and reviews for Schelling's translations
of classical Indian literature. His translations include ancient Sanskrit poetry,
Isha Upanishad,
Amarushataka, Gita Govinda, and the songs of Mirabai. Additional notes for his translations can be found in the Journals and Notebooks subseries.
G) The Editing subseries consists of correspondence, notes, drafts, proofs, proposals, permissions and artwork for publications
edited by Schelling. These include two collections of poetry,
The Oxford Anthology of Bhakti Literature and
The Wisdom Anthology of North American Buddhist Poetry, and the journals
Bombay Gin, Chumolungma Globe, Dark Ages Clasp the Daisy Root, and
Jimmy and Lucy's House of "K."
H) The Other Writings subseries includes Schelling's description of a family oral history project, a short story, and some
short prose writings.
I) The Journals subseries contains Schelling's journals for the years 1982-2001. Most are handwritten in bound blank books;
a few typescripts are included. Some of the journals are titled. In addition to dated entries, the journals may also include
notes; drafts of poems, essays, translations or correspondence; quotes; and descriptions of his travels.
J) The Notebooks subseries is comprised of Schelling's pocket notebooks from 1983-2001. Smaller in size and scope than the
journals, they generally lack dated entries. A few have been titled; many of the notebooks are undated. Wire bound notebooks
have been disbound. Notebooks with Schelling's teaching notes can be found in the TEACHING FILES series. Several photographs
in the PHOTOGRAPHS series depict Schelling carrying a notebook in his shirt pocket.
SERIES 4: COLLABORATIVE WRITINGS
The COLLABORATIVE WRITINGS series contains drafts, notes, reviews, and correspondence of writings by Schelling with Anne Waldman
and with other writers. The series is arranged in the following subseries: A) Collaborations with Ann Waldman and B) Other
Collaborations.
A) Collaborations with Ann Waldman. Schelling collaborated with Waldman on many poems and chapbooks, as well as editing
Disembodied Poetics: Annals of the Jack Kerouac School and
Songs of the Sons and Daughters of Buddha, translations of early Buddhist poems.
B) The Other Collaborations subseries includes anthologies of poetry from writing workshops; renga, or collaborative poetry,
written with his poetry classes; and
Hui-Neng, a chapbook written with poets Benjamin Friedlander and Patricia Reed.
SERIES 5: WRITINGS BY OTHERS
The WRITINGS BY OTHERS series consists primarily of handmade booklets of poetry created by Anne Waldman as gifts for Schelling
between 1992 and 2000. Also included are manuscripts of
Home Among the Swinging Stars: The Collected Poems of Jaime de Angulo (Stefan Hyner, 2006) and "Rain Mirror" (Michael McClure, 1999), which were annotated by Schelling.
SERIES 6: TEACHING FILES
The TEACHING FILES series contains Schelling's correspondence and notes regarding his classes and workshops at Naropa Institute
(now Naropa University) in Boulder, Colorado; Deer Park Art Institute in Himachal Pradesh, India; and the Great River Arts
Institute in Patzcuaro, Mexico. Schelling's classes included poetry workshops, Sanskrit translation, Indian poetry, bioregional
poetry, and wilderness writing. Panels presented at Naropa can be found in the WRITINGS BY SCHELLING series.
SERIES 7: PHOTOGRAPHS
The PHOTOGRAPHS series includes photographs of Andrew Schelling, Anne Waldman and other prominent poets taken between 1978
and 2010.
Acquired 2012.
Publication rights are held by the creator of the collection.
Andrew Schelling Papers, MSS 745. Special Collections & Archives, UC San Diego.
Poet and translator Andrew Crombie Schelling was born January 14, 1953 in Washington, D.C. He grew up in the Boston area and
graduated from Lexington High School in 1970. After studying at the University of Rochester from 1971-1973, Schelling made
his first trip to India and then transferred to the University of California, Santa Cruz. On the west coast, Schelling began
studying poetry, Zen Buddhism, and Sanskrit. He received his B.A. in religious studies from UCSC in 1975, and then continued
studying Sanskrit and Asian literature at UC Berkeley. Lacking departmental support for his proposed master's thesis on linguist
and poet Jaime de Angulo, Schelling left UCB in 1980.
Schelling continued writing poetry and translating Sanskrit. With Benjamin Friedlander, he edited the poetry journals
Jimmy & Lucy's House of "K" (1984-1991),
Chumolungma Globe (1987) and
Dark Ages Clasp the Daisy Root (1991-1994). He also worked at Moe's Books and Shambhala Booksellers in Berkeley, studied Zen with the Berkeley Zen Center
and Green Gulch Farms, and taught Asian literature and ethnopoetics at Maybeck High School in Berkeley.
After two years of teaching as guest faculty at Naropa Institute's Summer Writing Program, Schelling was invited to join the
faculty full time. He moved to Boulder, Colorado in 1990 to teach poetry for Naropa's Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics
and Sanskrit translation for the Religious Studies department. At Naropa, Schelling developed a concentration in translation,
chaired the Writing and Poetics department from 1993-1996, and founded the Kavyayantra Press. His classes include poetry workshops,
bioregional poetry, ethnopoetics, Indian poetry, contemplative traditions, and wilderness writing.
Schelling's published works include several books of poetry, two collections of essays, and translations from Sanskrit, Indian
vernacular languages, and Arapaho. His book of Sanskrit translations,
Dropping the Bow: Poems from Ancient India (1991), received the Harold Morton Landon Translation Award from the Academy of American Poets. Schelling also received two
grants from the Wittner Bynner Foundation for Poetry and a Contemplative Practice Fellowship from the American Council of
Learned Societies. Schelling is noted for his use of bioregionalism and ecopoetics in his writing.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Bioregionalism in literature
Ecology in literature
Poetry, Modern
Nature in literature
Photographic prints -- 20th century
Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics
Friedlander, Benjamin, 1959- -- Correspondence
Kavyayantra Press
Ginsberg, Allen, 1926-1927 -- Correspondence
Eshleman, Clayton -- Correspondence
Ferlinghetti, Lawrence -- Correspondence
Corman, Cid -- Correspondence
DuPlessis, Rachel Blau -- Correspondence
Bernstein, Charles, 1950- -- Correspondence
Naropa Institute
Rothenberg, Jerome, 1931- -- Correspondence
Scalapino, Leslie -- Correspondence
Messerli, Douglas, 1947- -- Correspondence
Notley, Alice, 1945- -- Correspondence
Irby, Kenneth, 1936-2015 -- Correspondence
Kyger, Joanne -- Correspondence
Hejinian, Lyn -- Correspondence
Howe, Susan, 1937- -- Correspondence
Weiner, Hannah -- Correspondence
Weinberger, Eliot -- Correspondence
Waldman, Anne, 1945- -- Correspondence
Taggart, John, 1942- -- Correspondence
Snyder, Gary, 1930- -- Correspondence
Silliman, Ronald, 1946- -- Correspondence
Schelling, Andrew -- Archives