Curator of UB Poetry Collection Wins Fulbright Award

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Robert J. Bertholf, curator of the University at Buffalo Poetry/Rare Books Collection, has been awarded a senior lectureship by the Fulbright Commission to teach American Studies at Hacettepe University in Ankara, Turkey, during the Fall 1994 semester.

Bertholf, a member of the UB Program in Poetics, will teach courses in 20th century American poetry, a field closely related to his 15-year tenure as curator of the UB collection, which houses one of the most complete collections of 20th-century poetry in English in the world.

His areas of special interest and research include the poetry of Robert Duncan, Ezra Pound, William Carlos Williams, Wallace Stevens and Charles Olson. Bertholf has published widely in scholarly journals, and served for eight years as editor of the literary journal Credences. He also edited Northwest Review, and is former American editor of the Australian journal New Poetry. He serves on the editorial boards of The Journal of Modern Literature and the William Carlos Williams Review.

Bertholf's interest in correspondences between 20th century poetry and visual art has led to several collaborations on exhibitions and catalogues that explored these relationships.

Among these are a 1990 exhibition of the work of the Polish-American abstractionist Julian Stanczak, published as "Julian Stanczak: Decades of Light," and a 1993-94 national traveling library exhibit titled "A Symposium of the Imagination: Robert Duncan in Word and Image." The latter focused on the collaboration between Duncan, the influential experimental poet who co-founded the "San Francisco Renaissance" in American poetry, and painter-collagist Jess, his companion in life and art for more 35 years.

Among Bertholf's books are "Robert Duncan: Scales of the Marvelous," "William Blake and the Moderns," "From this Condensery: The Complete Writings of Lorine Niedecker" and "Robert Duncan: A Descriptive Bibliography." Recent books include "Robert Duncan, Selected Poems" (New Directions, 1993) and "Robert Duncan, Selected Prose," to be published in 1995 by New Directions. Bertholf is a member of the Wallace Stevens Society, Society William Carlos Williams Society, the Melville Society and The Grolier Club.