On November 7, 2015, I joined Nancy Kuhl, poet and curator of poetry for the Yale Collection of American Literature at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, and Kevin Young, poet and curator of Literary Collections and the Raymond Danowski Poetry Library at Emory University, to discuss how we “curate collections and community” at Poets House’s Library Symposium. Other participants included Catherine Barnett, Tyehimba Jess, Monica Youn, Ander Monson, and Susan Howe. You can find my comments here.
An afternoon spent in silence? A-Z? The cosmic order of Borges’ library of the imagination? Whatever the duration, extent, or dimensions of your perfect library, this day-long symposium will delight and inform as it winds through the many roles libraries take on in the community of readers and in the imagination, as collection, as shared intellectual and physical space, and as the symbol of shared knowledge.