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American Literary Studies
The Eddie Woods Archive
The Eddie Woods Archive documents an understudied, indeed largely
undefined, segment of the “new American poetry and prose” of
the post-1945 period – namely, the expatriate and, to a certain
extent, surrealist school that has numerous connections with the
Beats but is essentially an independent, coherent body of work
whose leading figures are represented in this collection by substantial
numbers of manuscript materials, correspondence, scarce and rare
books, photographs, and a variety of art prints, including numerous
silk screens. The principal centers of this expatriate vein of
post-WWII American cultural expression were Amsterdam, London,
Morocco, Nepal, Bombay and other sites in India, Thailand, Bali,
and to a lesser degree Paris. Eddie Woods (b. 1940, in New York)
moved into this cultural circle in the early 1970s. Originally
a journalist, he first made contact with it through his newspaper
and radio work in Thailand, which was eventually followed by his
becoming an editor for International Times (IT), a London-based
monthly that was one of the counter-culture’s major voices
in the 1960s and 1970s. Woods had begun writing poetry and fiction
by this time, and after he moved to Amsterdam in the late 1970s,
he founded Ins & Outs magazine, then subsequently the Ins & Outs
Press and Bookstore, all of which flourished as publishers, publicists,
and organizers of expatriate cultural productions from the late
70s and into the 80s (with the Press continuing into the early
90s). In October 2004 the Press emerged from a decade of ‘suspended
animation’ with the release of Eddie Woods’ spoken-word
CD Dangerous Precipice, followed a year later by his book Tsunami
of Love: A Poems Cycle. The recorded version of Tsunami
of Love appeared on compact disc in August 2007.
In his role as a cultural impresario and artistic entrepreneur,
Eddie Woods, still an active poet and prose writer, is an important
presence, both in American expatriate circles and among European
avant-gardists, especially Dutch and Italian. Woods’ promotional
activities made him, in short, a crucial center to the movement,
and his archive documents his close connections with its leading
figures, including Paul Bowles (14 very substantive letters and
40+ pages of mss), Ira Cohen (199 letters, 75 pp. of mss, and 200+
photographs, including early “mylar” experiments), Bob
and Eileen Kaufman (20+ letters, 200+pp of mss, unique taped interviews),
Louise Landes-Levi (36 letters, 60+pp. of mss, numerous unique tapes)
William Levy (95 letters, 220+pp. mss), and Jack Micheline (26 letters,
20+ works of art, unique interviews, and other materials).
The Archive also contains manuscripts and many photographs of the
principal Beat writers, including William Burroughs, Gregory Corso,
Allen Ginsberg, Herbert Huncke, and Harold Norse. It features, as
well, significant documentation on numerous European avant-garde
figures of the period, such as the British writer Tom Raworth (15
quite substantive holograph letters and related items), the Dutch
photographer Peter Edel (5 letters, 50 photographs, including portraits
of William Burroughs, Julian Beck, Allen Ginsberg, and Yevgeny Yevtushenko,
along with annotated contact sheets), Piero Heliczer, Italian-born
American poet, playwright and filmmaker (35 letters, c. 50pp. of
mss, and numerous related items), and Chris Sanders, long-time publisher
of the International Times (23 letters and a full-box of related
manuscripts, documentation and additional correspondence).
Finding Guides: The Little Magazines series is processed and a finding guide is available here:
Little Magazines
The remainder of the collection is currently
unprocessed and uncataloged. However, for scholars wishing to get
a sense of what is in the collection, preliminary inventories written
by Eddie Woods are viewable here:
General Inventory
Eddie Woods File
Special Books and Magazines
Research Access and Use: Materials in the Department of
Special Collections are non-circulating and must be used in the
Special Collections' Reading Room in the Cecil H. Green Library.
The Reading Room is open 10:00am to 5:00pm Monday through Friday.
Photocopies, photographs, and microfilm can be made of some materials
in the collections. For more information about the collections
and access policies, please contact Special Collections by telephone
at (650) 725-1022, by electronic mail at speccollref@stanford.edu or by regular mail at the Department of Special Collections, Stanford
University Libraries, Stanford, California 94305-6004.
Last modified:
December 3, 2007
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