Winter Wedding: Holiday Cards by Poets

On view: Tuesday, December 2, 2014–Saturday, March 21, 2015

Winter Wedding: Holiday Cards by Poets features holiday cards, valentines, birthday greetings, rare booklets, and more from some of the last century’s most beloved poets, including Langston Hughes, Alice Notley, Ted Berrigan, Seamus Heaney, and Sylvia Plath. Ranging from intimate exchanges to collaborative artworks to annual original compositions, the pieces in the show offer a fascinating look at the ties of love and friendship behind the literary success, as well as at shifting styles and conventions in correspondence.

Curated by Kevin Young and Lisa Chinn, items are drawn primarily from the Raymond Danowski Poetry Library, part of the Manuscript, Archives, & Rare Book Library at Emory University. Young is curator of the Danowski Poetry Library and Emory’s Atticus Haygood Professor of English and Creative Writing; Chinn is a fifth-year PhD candidate in the Department of English. They previously collaborated at Poets House on the 2013-14 exhibition come celebrate with me: The Work of Lucille Clifton.

Read a review of the exhibit from The Guardian (UK): Poets’ holiday greetings cards: an intimate glimpse into genius