Baltimore Poetry Library
The Baltimore Poetry Library, a special collection in the Klein Family School of Communications Design, is the largest single collection of Baltimore-based, Baltimore-born, and Baltimore-related authors and publishers, fulfilling the goal to document and archive the full history of Baltimore’s poetry-related literary communities, and to make the collection available to students, scholars and lovers of poetry. Baltimore is a writer’s hub and has a rich history and tradition of community libraries, though it has not had a space dedicated solely to the poetry and poetics of the Baltimore region. The Baltimore Poetry Library is now that space, and with over 4,000 titles and growing, the collection will reflect the current and past states of the Baltimore writing community where a celebration and study of the ghosts of Baltimore poets past, and an incubation and showcase of the very alive Baltimore poets of the present and future will add to the texture of a resurgent community.
The Baltimore Poetry Library includes poetry books and anthologies, handmade books, chapbooks, broadsides, manuscripts, journals, and audio-video materials, and some of the most exciting aspects of the collection are the hundreds of artifacts that defy the concept of the book—for example, a collection of photocopies, postcards, toys, and even painted records bound into a sack—making the library an important resource for the preservation and archiving of rare and delicate materials. While the physical collection is the heart of the library, an additional focus on poetry- and book arts-related programming with the undergraduate and graduate students, inspired and informed by the cultural legacy of the collection, is complementary to the vision and mission of the Library, and in the Klein Family School of Communications Design at the University of Baltimore the Baltimore Poetry Library has found its home.
For more information, contact Kendra Kopelke at 410.837.6026.