Robert DeMott Papers Relating to Poet John Haines

May 22, 2007

The Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library

John Haines is the author of numerous books of poetry, including At the End of This Summer, The Owl in the Mask of the Dreamer, Cicada, Leaves and Ashes, and News from the Glacier.

His prose works include: Fables and Distances: New and Selected Essays and The Stars, the Snow, the Fire: Twenty-five Years in the Northern Wilderness.

He has received the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize, the Western States Book Award, and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Library of Congress.

Robert DeMott is the author and editor of books including Artful Thunder: Versions of the Romantic Tradition in American Literature, After The Grapes of Wrath: Essays on John Steinbeck, Steinbeck’s Reading: a Catalogue of Books Owned and Borrowed, and Working Days: the Journals of the Grapes of Wrath, 1938-1941. His poetry publications include Weather in Athens and News of Loss.

The Robert J. DeMott Papers Relating to Poet John Haines include correspondence, writings, printed materials, and photographs. The correspondence consists chiefly of letters from Haines to DeMott, but there are letters between Haines and others, including copies of letters from William Carlos Williams, Hayden Carruth, and President Bill Clinton. Letters from Haines to DeMott discuss the poet’s writing, efforts to find teaching positions, life in Alaska, and other topics, and they contain numerous enclosures, copies of drafts and printed versions of work, third party correspondence, photographs, and newspaper clippings on such topics as fishing and hunting. Writings by Haines include drafts and printed versions of articles and essays, open letters, poems, book reviews, speeches, and other writings.

A complete record of the collection can be seen on line: Robert J. DeMott papers relating to John Meade Haines, 1953-2005.