kari edwards papers
Scope and Contents
The kari edwards papers includes approximately 3300 digital files representing edwards’ work as an artist, poet, teacher, and gender activist. Drafts of published and unpublished writing, cover art, graphic files, reviews, and correspondence from many of edwards’ works, including a day in the life of p., Bharat jiva, a diary of lies, having been blue for charity, iduna, Low, obedience, one imagines something supposedly, post/(pink), and succubus in my pocket. In addition to written work, the collection contains moving image recordings of poetry readings by edwards. Works with others, including collaborators Erica Kaufman and Anny Ballardini are also included.
kari edwards teaching experience is reflected in a series of syllabi and course proposals for classes in art appreciation, creative writing, gender and myth, poetry, sculpture, and women’s literature. Edwards taught these courses in Auroville, Tamil Nadu, India, Naropa University, Boulder, CO, University of Colorado-Boulder, Community College of Aurora, CO, University of Denver, and the Taylor School of Art at Temple University.
A large portion of the collection consists of digital images and moving images that document edwards’ travel with partner Frances Blau through India including the cities of Delhi, Pondicherry, Varanasi, Chennai, Kolkata, and Auroville, an experimental village in the state of Tamil Nadu. edwards’ personal life is further documented in digital images taken in Newton, Massachusetts, San Diego and San Francisco, California. Separately, a donation of genealogical materials was given to the Poetry Collection in 2011. This material includes census records, death and marriage records, immigration records, and other genealogical research.
The paper materials in the collection consist of materials created, used, and collected, during edwards’ lifetime. It also consists of posthumous materials related to edwards’ life and career, including papers, publications, artworks, and documentation related to collaborations, tributes, memorials, obituaries, and correspondence regarding hir ongoing legacy.
Record types in the collection include notebooks, typed manuscripts, handwritten and email correspondence, ephemera, photographs, copies of publications used for public readings, chapbooks collected by edwards, inscribed publications addressed to edwards and Frances Blau, artworks on paper and canvas, as well as the urn for edwards’ ashes designed by the artist and ceramicist Adil Writer (ashes scattered in December 2007 at Ocean Beach, San Francisco, CA).
Dates
- circa 1982-2019
Creator
- edwards, kari (Person)
Special Viewing Instructions
Access to digital material provided via the Special Collections' Digital Archives online repository.
This collection has been minimally processed. Privacy protected information (including but not limited to certain educational, medical, financial, criminal, attorney-client, and/or personnel records) may be revealed during use of archival collections, particularly in collections that are unprocessed or have been minimally processed. Researchers agree to make no notes or other recordation of privacy protected information if found within the archival collections, and further agree not to publish, publicize, or disclose such information to any other party for any purpose if found within the archival collections.
Terms of Access and Use
The kari edwards papers, circa 1982-2018, is open for research.
Access copies of these files are available for research use. During processing, formatting of the files may have been altered. The file format of the access copy may be different than the preservation copy. Refer to the collection processing note for additional information on format migration.
This collection has been minimally processed. Privacy protected information (including but not limited to certain educational, medical, financial, criminal, attorney-client, and/or personnel records) may be revealed during use of archival collections, particularly in collections that are unprocessed or have been minimally processed. Researchers agree to make no notes or other recordation of privacy protected information if found within the archival collections, and further agree not to publish, publicize, or disclose such information to any other party for any purpose if found within the archival collections.
Copyright
Copyright of papers in the collection may be held by their authors, or the authors' heirs or assigns. Researchers must obtain the written permission of the holder(s) of copyright and the Poetry Collection before requesting photocopies and/or publishing quotations from materials in the collection. Once permission is obtained, most papers may be copied in accordance with the library's usual procedures unless otherwise specified.
Biographical Note
Please note:This finding aid uses the gender pronouns “sie/hir” when referring to kari edwards.
edwards was an unequivocal defender of trans rights, gender politics, and identity, and forthright about not subscribing to a gender binary (sie wrote entire works without any pronouns or capitalization). However, during hir life it was never entirely clear what hir preferred gender pronouns were. At public appearances and book readings, edwards would sign books by simply crossing out hir name on the title page and writing below it “NO GENDER.” In an interview in 2003, edwards stated:
"Gender is one of those things that is assumed to be solid, where in reality it is both a social construct and a personal choice. And like everything else gender is neither solid nor permanent, its only permanence is perpetrated by the state, family, or the church. So the shifting narrative is more representative of life…" 1
Texts published during edwards’ career and following hir death, including correspondence with hir partner Frances Blau, oscillate between the pronouns “she/her” and “sie/hir”, while edwards’ author biography following the text for a day in the life of p. (subpress collective, 2002) and other works, uses the pronouns “sie/hir.”
With this knowledge, we have made the decision to use “sie/hir” in this finding aid.
If you discover harmful or offensive language in catalog records, finding aids, descriptive metadata for digitized items, or other content created by Special Collections archivists and librarians, please contact lib-archives@buffalo.edu or lpo-poetry@buffalo.edu. We welcome your feedback.
kari edwards was an artist, poet, teacher, and gender activist. edwards was born in Illinois in 1954 and raised in Westfield, NY. kari edwards' formal education included a B.F.A. from the University of Wisconsin - Madison, a M.F.A. in sculpture from Washington University, St. Louis, and a M.A. in Contemplative Psychology and M.F.A. in writing and poetics from Naropa University, Boulder, CO. edwards met Frances Blau, who would become hir life partner, while at Naropa.
edwards' academic and teaching experience included courses in sculpture, art and diversity, book art, performance and sound art, composition, creative writing, composition, poetry, women’s literature, and gender and world mythology. edwards held teaching positions in Auroville, Tamil Nadu, India, Naropa University, Boulder, CO, University of Colorado-Boulder, Community College of Aurora, CO, University of Denver, and the Taylor School of Art at Temple University. At the Community Learning Center in Denver, CO, edwards taught poetry, painting and drawing while employed as an art instructor and counselor for at-risk youth.
edwards' work in fiction, nonfiction, and poetry was published in numerous journals, magazines and anthologies. Book publications include post/(pink) (2000), a diary of lies (2002), a day in the life of p (2002) iduna (2003), obedience (2005), and posthumous Bharat jiva (2009). edwards' work also appears in Blood and Tears: Poems for Matthew Shepard (2000), Transgenderism: InterSEXions of the Others (2004), Civil Disobedience: Poetics and Politics in Action (2004), and the International Journal of Sexuality and Gender Studies. Sie is the subject of the book No Gender: Reflections on the Life & Work of kari edwards (2009).
Edwards won the New Langton Arts Bay Area Award in literature in 2002 and the Small Press Traffic’s Book of the Year Award in 2004. kari edwards passed away on December 2, 2006 at the age of fifty-two.
1. Shifting the Subject: an Interview with kari edwards,” Rain Taxi Review of Books, Spring 2003 Online Edition. http://raintaxi.com/online/2003spring/edwards.shtml
Extent
4.622 Gigabytes (3336 files) : 1 USB flash drive, 6 digital optical discs (DVD), 3 compact discs (CD)
9.88 Linear Feet
Language of Materials
English
Hindi
Abstract
The kari edwards papers comprises approximately 4.6 gigabytes of digital content (approximately 3300 files) and 9.88 linear feet of paper materials and art objects. The bulk of the digital files can be described as born digital; content originating in a computer environment. These files consist of drafts of edwards' published works of poetry, drafts of unpublished works, images of cover art for works, reviews of edwards' poetry, syllabi and letters to publishers. The collection also contains a significant number of digital images, including born digital images and other images that are digital surrogates of print photographs. The bulk of the digital images were taken during travel to various parts of India including Auroville, Chennai, Delhi, Kolkata, Mamallapuram, and Varanasi between 2004 and 2006. The physical records include notebooks, manuscripts, ephemera, clippings, official documents, unique publications, photographs, artworks on paper and canvas.
Arrangement
The kari edwards collection, circa 1982-2011 comprises approximately 4.6 gigabytes of digital material (approximately 3300 files). The bulk of the collection, a file directory containing 2.7 gigabytes of digital content (approximately 2800 files), was transferred to the Poetry Collection in 2012. The structure of the file directory, folder names, and file names was retained during processing and is replicated in the arrangement of the collection. The remaining portion of the collection, namely audio files, audiovisual recordings of poetry readings, and a series of records on family history, were donated to the Poetry Collection at a later date.
Prior to processing in August 2022, the paper materials were housed in folders, arranged roughly by record type. This arrangement has been maintained in processing, new accessions have been added to the collection, reflecting this arrangement. The items have been re-foldered, the order of the folders or the items within folders have not been re-arranged. Subsequent accessions have been filed according to this arrangement.
Related Digital Material
Acquisition Information
Papers and born-digital materials were donated to the poetry collection through a series of donations from edwards’ partner, Frances Blau, between the years 2012 to 2022. The bulk of this collection was transferred to the Poetry Collection on a USB flash drive in 2012. On transfer files were copied to a network drive by Poetry Collection staff and were also backed up on 4 DVDs. PDF copies of the files along with file manifests were generated at that time. Additional digital files pertaining to kari edwards' family history were donated in August 2011 by Roy Robbins and audio, images, a slideshow, and video of kari edwards readings were transferred to the Poetry Collection on 6 DVDs and 2 CDs.
Processing Information
Collection processed by Sarah Cogley with Matthew Gadziala, 2020. Physical materials processed by Kolbe Resnick, 2022.
Digital files created by kari edwards were transferred to the Poetry Collection on multiple types of storage media including a USB flash drive, compacts discs (CD), and digital versatile discs (DVD). Digital files located on storage media were copied from the storage media and transferred to a preservation environment following the University Libraries Special Collections Digital Preservation guidelines. Original files have been retained as preservation copies. An access copy of the files was also created. During migration, formatting of the files may have been altered.
The bulk of kari edwards' digital documents are AppleWorks Word Processor documents (.cwk). Other file formats include Acrobat PDF, Adobe InDesign Documents, Audio Interchange files, Exchangeable Image files, JPEG files, Microsoft Word documents, MIME Email files, Plain text files, QuickTime files, Raw JPEG streams, Rich Text files, Tagged Image files, Audio CDs, and Video Object files (MPEG-2 subset).
AppleWorks Word Processor documents, Microsoft Word documents, and MIME Email files were migrated to OpenDocument Text Document files (.odt) in order to provide stable readable access copies. Adobe InDesign Document files were migrated to Adobe PDF. Tagged Image files were migrated to JPEG files. DVD Video files (Video Object files) were migrated to MP4 files. Audio CDs were migrated to MP3 files.
Temporary files were removed from this collection, according to the Library’s digital preservation and privacy policies.
- Digital art (visual works)
- Digital images
- Experimental poetry -- American
- Poets, American -- 20th century -- Archives
- Poets, American--20th century
- Poets, American--20th century--Correspondence
- Transgender people -- Civil rights
- Transgender people -- Poetry
- Transgender people’s writings -- American
- Video recordings
- Visual poetry
Source
- The Poetry Collection (Repository, Organization)
- Title
- Finding aid for the kari edwards collection
- Status
- Under Revision
- Author
- Finding aid prepared by Sarah Cogley. Revised and updated to include paper materials by Kolbe Resnick in 2022.
- Date
- 03 February 2020
- Description rules
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
- Language of description
- English
- Script of description
- Latin
Repository Details
Part of the The Poetry Collection Repository
420 Capen Hall
Buffalo New York 14260-1674 US
716-645-2917
716-645-3714 (Fax)
lpo-poetry@buffalo.edu