Woodberry Poetry Room
Home to a collection of 20th and 21st century English-language poetry materials, the Poetry Room features a circulating collection of poetry monographs, anthologies, journals, magazines, audio recordings and Blue Star collection of rare manuscripts.
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- (617) 495-2454
Home to a collection of 20th and 21st century English-language poetry materials, the Poetry Room features a circulating collection of poetry monographs, anthologies, journals, magazines, audio recordings and Blue Star collection of rare manuscripts. The Woodberry Poetry Room's audio collection comprises over 5,000 recordings including readings, lectures, informal conversations, oral histories, interviews, radio broadcasts and, more recently, answering-machine poems. See Explore the Collections.
Public Computer Terminals
A/V Equipment
Group Study Rooms
Home to a collection of 20th and 21st century English-language poetry materials, the Poetry Room features a circulating collection of poetry monographs, anthologies, journals, magazines, audio recordings and Blue Star collection of rare manuscripts. The Woodberry Poetry Room's audio collection comprises over 5,000 recordings including readings, lectures, informal conversations, oral histories, interviews, radio broadcasts and, more recently, answering-machine poems. See Explore the Collections.
- Public Computer Terminals
- A/V Equipment
- Group Study Rooms
Home to a collection of 20th and 21st century English-language poetry materials, the Poetry Room features a circulating collection of poetry monographs, anthologies, journals, magazines, audio recordings and Blue Star collection of rare manuscripts. The Woodberry Poetry Room's audio collection comprises over 5,000 recordings including readings, lectures, informal conversations, oral histories, interviews, radio broadcasts and, more recently, answering-machine poems. See Explore the Collections.
- Public Computer Terminals
- A/V Equipment
- Group Study Rooms
Audio-Visual Collection
The Woodberry Poetry Room's audio collection comprises over 5,000 recordings, including unique recordings produced by the Poetry Room and the Harvard Department of English, early collaborative recordings made in conjunction with the British Council, as well as the audio archives of the Academy of American Poets and the Aspen Writers' Conference. The audio-visual collection is accessible by arrangement with the curator at (617) 495-2454 or via email at poetryrm@fas.harvard.edu. Recordings must be listened to in the Poetry Room, unless digital access is provided through HOLLIS. See Audio-Visual Collection for more information.
Blue Star Collection
The Blue Star collection is a non-circulating collection of rare or limited-edition monographs, chapbooks and broadsides. Highlights from the Blue Star collection include typescripts of poems by Sylvia Plath, Theodore Roethke's annotated edition of Rilke's Duino Elegies, a cigar smoked by Amy Lowell, broadsides signed by Elizabeth Bishop and Allen Ginsberg, archival photographs of Robert Frost, Marianne Moore and Ted Hughes and portraits by Larry Rivers, as well as first (or signed) editions of works ranging from John Ashbery to Louis Zukofsky. For more information, see Blue Star Collection for more information.
Book and Serial Collection
Home to a collection of 20th and 21st century English-language poetry materials, the Poetry Room features a circulating collection of poetry monographs, anthologies, journals, magazines, and audio recordings. See Book and Serial Collection for more informaton.
- Research Appointments
- Public Programs
- Visitor
The Poetry Room is open to all Harvard students, faculty, staff, alumni, visiting scholars and members of the public (with a valid photo ID). Members of the public must sign in at the Lamont Library security desk and indicate that they are visiting the Woodberry Poetry Room. The Poetry Room does not participate in an interlibrary loan program. Non-Harvard readers may have access to our collection but are required to sign into a guestbook at any one of the Lamont Library entrances. Everyone is required to allow bag/parcel inspection upon leaving the building. Library materials do not circulate to anyone not affiliated with Harvard University. No archival recordings or Blue Star materials circulate - these materials are examined in the Poetry Room by appointment and cannot leave the Poetry Room; requests for duplication require written permission by owner of copyright.
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The Lamont building is wheelchair accessible by a ramp located to the left of the main entrance, near Quincy Street. There are two elevators: the east elevator services all floors of the library; the west elevator does not service the fourth floor.
Many of the workstations in Research Services on Level B are wheelchair accessible. On the first floor, there is a workstation that accesses the Language Resource Center’s server. See Lamont Library's Disability Services page.
