Celebrating selected books, images, pamphlets, and broadsides is the exhibition Rhapsodies, Rhymes, and Runes: The Poetry of Special Collections, now on display in the Special Collections Reading Room of the Albin O. Kuhn Library & Gallery. The exhibition will continue through November 26, 2014 (extended!).
The works in the show illustrate some of the various collections in the Special Collections including images from the Photography Collections, science fiction poetry books from the Azriel Rosenfeld Science Fiction Research Collection, Beat Generation poetry from the rare book holdings, Maryland poems from the Arnold Collection, nineteenth century poetry from the Merkle Collection, and contemporary poetry books from the Faculty/Staff Collection.
Insight into the various eras in which the works were produced is evident by the selections. For example, Allen Ginsberg’s book Howl is an icon of the Beat Generation, and continues to be a touchstone of the counterculture today. The book is paired with a portrait photograph of Ginsberg by photographer Elsa Dorfman, noted for her portraits of Beat Generation authors. An 1884 edition of a book devoted to The Raven by Edgar Allen Poe demonstrates how revered Poe was even in 1884 when the book was published. Famous French illustrator Gustave Doré did the images on pages opposite the pages of the poem. Other items in the exhibition are broadsides by Dick Higgins, photographs by Lotte Jacobi, books by Paul Lawrence Dunbar, poems by Gertrude Stein, and many others.
Rhapsodies, Rhymes, and Runes: The Poetry of Special Collections was co-curated by Robin Martin, Public History Graduate Candidate and Special Collections Assistant and Jazmin Smith, Art History and Museum Studies major.
The Special Collections Department is located at the far end of the Library Gallery, and is open Monday through Friday 1:00 pm to 4:00 pm. On Thursdays, it is open also from 4:00 to 8:00 pm. For more information call (410)-455-2353 or send an email to speccoll@umbc.edu.
This post was written by Robin Martin.
