Brewster Ghiselin papers

Collection

Identifier: MS 0528

Staff Only

Scope and Contents

The Brewster Ghiselin papers (1928-1996) consist of materials related to Ghiselin's career as an author, poet, and professor at the University of Utah. The collection contains materials related to the University of Utah Writer's Conference, primarily from 1944 to 1966, materials from the Poetry Society of America, a large number of books of poetry by various authors, and manuscripts of much of Ghiselin's own work, both poetry and essays. The materials consist of manuscripts, notes, letters, brochures, news clippings, correspondence, reader evaluation forms, bulletins, posters, preparatory materials, and other items.

Dates

1928-1996

Creator

Ghiselin, Brewster, 1903-2002 (Person)

Language of Materials

Collection materials are in English.

Conditions Governing Access

Twenty-four hour advanced notice encouraged. Materials must be used on-site. Access to parts of this collection may be restricted under provisions of state or federal law.

Conditions Governing Use

The library does not claim to control copyright for all materials in the collection. An individual depicted in a reproduction has privacy rights as outlined in Title 45 CFR, part 46 (Protection of Human Subjects). For further information, please review the J. Willard Marriott Library’s Use Agreement and Reproduction Request forms.

Biographical Sketch

Brewster Ghiselin was born in Webster Groves, Missouri, in 1903, but once said that he felt more at home in California near Mt. Tamalpais, where he moved at age 18. Ghiselin is specifically well-known for his poem "The Rattlesnake," but has many finely developed and diversified abilities. In addition to publishing numerous collections of poetry, Ghiselin was responsible for creating and teaching a course on the creative process, which in turn birthed his over 500,000-copy bestseller, The Creative Process. Not being limited merely to the exposition and sublimation of the written word, Ghiselin held a showing of watercolors and drawings at the Salt Lake Art Council's Art Barn in 1937. The result of Ghiselin's achievements: a garner of awards and immense recognition of achievement in the arts. In 1970, Ghiselin received an award from the National Institute of Arts and Letters and had his "Country of the Minotaur" selected by Masterplots as one of the oustanding books printed in 1970. To further the list, in 1981 and 1982 respectively, Ghiselin received the William Carlos Williams Award from the Poetry Society of America and the Governor's Award for the Arts.

The University of Utah Writer's Conference was established, conducted, and supplied with well-known and gifted teachers and writers through the efforts of Ghiselin, who served as conference director for nineteen years. Ghiselin joined the University of Utah faculty in 1929 after receiving his A.B. degree from UCLA in 1927, his M.A. from UC Berkeley in 1928 and after completing a year of study at Oxford, where he had gone in pursuit of "finding a large-minded faculty and a liberal view" and D. H. Lawrence. A strong vein of naturalism runs through Ghiselin's work, and Wallace Stegner, in Ghiselin's The Water of Light, seems to sum Ghiselin's ability and his interpretation of the natural world the best: "That has been his double mark--the capacity to take in through the senses the whole range of the natural world, and the curiosity and patience and passion to know it in its quintessence, its ultimate quiddity, its absolute right image or word" (pg. 214).

As for Ghiselin's personal excellence in poetry, he has been called "one of the brightest of the young poets;" as for the University of Utah Writer's Conference, the Ghiselin excellence is apparent. "On the whole, though, I am very well satisfied with what seems to me the essential success of the conference in serving the needs of the writers in the community who matter most. It is a comfort, too, to find that the smart and talented young people all feel I have been doing the best thing possible for them in handling the conference as I have" (excerpt from a letter to Caroline Gordon, dated July 3, 1952).

(Sources for the biography include newspaper articles and shorts from his published works.)

Extent

44 Linear Feet (61 boxes)

Additional Description

Abstract

Immediate Source of Acquisition

Boxes 1-25 were donated in the 1980s.

Boxes 26-31 were donated in 1990.

Box 32 was donated in 1993.

Boxes 33-40 were donated in 1995.

Boxes 41-51 were donated in 1996.

Boxes 52-61 were donated in 1997.

Box 61, folder 15 was donated in 2001.