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Burns (Gerald) Manuscripts and Other Documents
MSS 0221
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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: Gerald Burns Manuscripts and Other Documents
Identifier/Call Number: MSS 0221
Physical Description:
1.4 Linear feet
(1 carton and 1 archives box)
Date (inclusive): 1978-2013 (bulk 1980-1997)
Abstract: Literary papers, correspondence, and artwork of Gerald Burns, "postmodern" poet, critic, artist, and editor. Includes typescripts
of Burns' poetry collections; galleys for Burns' critical books
Toward a Phenomenology of Written Art (1979) and
Prose (1982); and correspondence with poet Barbara Jordan.
Scope and Content of Collection
A small collection of the literary papers, correspondence and artwork of Gerald Burns, "postmodern" poet, critic, artist,
and editor. Includes typescripts and drafts of Burns' poetry; galleys for Burns' critical books
Toward a Phenomenology of Written Art (1979) and
Prose (1982); and correspondence with Barbara Jordan. It also contains page proofs of Robert Trammell's
Epics, for which Burns set the type; some prose writings such as essays; and artwork (principally line drawings, doodles, and sketches).
The second part of the collection consists of papers by and on Gerald Burns from the collection of Barbara Jordan, a friend
of Burns and his wife, Clio Dunn, and a fellow poet. This material primarily consists of their letters and drafts of poems
that Burns shared with Jordan.
Arranged in two series: 1) PAPERS, and 2) MATERIALS FROM BARBARA JORDAN.
Gerald Burns was born in 1940 in Detroit, Michigan. He was educated at Harvard, Trinity College (Dublin), and taught at Southern
Methodist University and New York University. In 1975 Burns moved to Dallas. In 1985, he was awarded an NEA Creative Writing
Fellowship for poetry. Burns found employment as an English teacher and editor, but his life's work was as a writer, poet,
and artist. He illustrated several of his own books and designed many of their covers (most notably,
Boccherini's Minuet and
Prose).
Burns is considered a leading practitioner of long-lined, thickly-textured verse. His wide reading and close observation of
a panoramic range of subjects allows his poetry to bridge formal and expressive gaps between the 19th-century Romantics, early
20th-century Modernism, and later 20th-century language-oriented writing.
Burns passed away in July 1997.
Gerald Burns Manuscripts and Other Documents. MSS 221. Special Collections & Archives, UC San Diego.
Acquired 1992, 2014.
COLLECTION STORED OFF-SITE. ALLOW ONE WEEK FOR RETRIEVAL OF MATERIALS.
Publication rights are held by the creator of the collection.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
American poetry -- 20th century
Burns, Gerald -- Archives
Jordan, Barbara, 1949- -- Correspondence