Leroi Jones: The Moderns

Collection

Identifier: MS7

Staff Only

Scope and Contents

THE MODERNS collection consists of Jones's files for publication of the anthology. Included are the manuscripts and typescripts from which material for publication was compiled. A copy of the published text is also present. Following the anthology material are Jones's correspondence files for this period, primarily 1961-1964. In alphabetical order are the letters of some 80 authors, many of whom were published either in this anthology or in one of Jones's magazines. Many letters are written out of friendship rather than business. Lengthier files include such writers as Don Allen, Robert Creeley, Edward Dorn, Allen Ginsberg, Charles Olson and Douglas Woolf.

Dates

1959-1964

Creator

Baraka, Amiri, 1934-2014 (Person)

Conditions Governing Access

None.

Biographical / Historical

This collection reflects LeRoi Jones's early interest in publishing new American writing. Throughout his career he has been a literary as well as a political activist, writing innovative and controversial plays, poetry and essays. He has also been the influential editor of numerous journals and anthologies which published new, young writers.

During the time that Jones published THE MODERNS: AN ANTHOLOGY OF NEW WRITING IN AMERICA (Corinth, 1963), he was also editor of YUGEN magazine, founder of the Totem Press, coeditor with Diane DiPrima of THE FLOATING BEAR newsletter, and music editor for KULCHUR magazine. His responsibilities for these various publications are apparent in many of the files in this collection.