Poetry Curator Brings Vision

Christina Davis, the new curator of the George Edward Woodberry Poetry Room, addressed a welcoming crowd last Thursday by saying, “It is an honor to bear the title, ‘curator of poetry,’ which seems to sum up in seven syllables my relationship with poetry—‘to care for’ poetry.”

There has been a year-long lull during which the books, broadsides, pamphlets, and recordings of the Woodberry collection have been without a permanent curator. With this in mind, Davis has arrived with plans not only to update the collection, but also to foster poetry on campus and in the surrounding area.

“My great hope is to make this a space that in some ways embodies the art of poetry—a place where people are writing poetry, reading poetry, researching poetry, and coming up with theories on poetry—the whole arc of the art form,” she said at the reception.

“Poetry is an atmosphere that people on campus are definitely involved in,” says Alexander J. Berman ’10, a member of The Harvard Advocate’s poetry board. “There is a clutch of people, of interested poets, who are in workshops.” But for the un-published portion of this clutch, there remains little means of creative cultivation, and Davis represents a beacon of hope for the future of poetry on the Harvard campus.

Thomas Horrocks, the associate librarian for collections at Houghton, is excited to have been a part of the board that appointed the poetess as curator. “We wanted someone here for outreach to the faculty, and for student involvement, and we wanted to bring in someone who has done that,” he says. “We think she is the one to move this forward.”

Horrock feels that Davis’s former position as head of publicity at Poet’s House Publishing in New York City, as well as her record as a creative writing teacher at NYU, qualifies her to do just that.

“It’s going to be a wide range of needs surrounding poetry here,” Davis says, adding that she hopes to draw on all her former experiences and different relationships with poetry to expand its role on campus. Her plans include walking tours, competitions, and even writing hours in the Woodberry room with prompts and discussion. “The possibilities are endless,” Davis says.

—Staff writer Noel D. Barlow can be reached at nbarlow@fas.harvard.edu.