Jeffery Beam Papers Initial Inventory (#4888)

Manuscripts Department, Library of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Contact Information:

Manuscripts Department

CB#3926, Wilson Library

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Chapel Hill, NC 27514-8890

Phone: 919/962-1345

Fax: 919/962-3594

Email: mss@email.unc.edu

URL: http://www.lib.unc.edu/mss/

Processed by:

Jackie Dean

Date Completed:

Winter 1998

Encoded by:

Jackie Dean

Revisions:

Finding aid updated in August 2000, February 2001, and June 2001 by Roslyn Holdzkom, in March 2003 by Linda Sellars, in June 2004 by Jaime Margalotti, in June 2004 by Linda Sellars, in October 2006 and January 2008 by Rachel Canada and Roslyn Holdzkom.

Descriptive Summary Including Abstract

Title

Jeffery Beam Papers (#4888)ca. 1968-2007

Creator

Beam, Jeffery, 1953-

Extent

About 28,000 items (50.0 linear feet)

Repository

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Library. Southern Historical Collection.

Language

English.

Administrative Information

Access

RESTRICTED: box 33 of correspondence CLOSED to researchers until 2075. Correspondence with Tom Ray and Damon Sauve is CLOSED until 2048. Unprocessed additions are CLOSED.

Usage Restrictions

Copyright is retained by the authors of items in these papers, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law.

Provenance

Received from Jeffery Beam, Hillsborough, N.C., September (Acc. 97115) and December (Acc. 97198) 1997; June (Acc. 98146) and October (Acc. 98209) 1998; June (Acc. 98397), September (Acc. 98458), November (Acc. 98514) 1999; February 2000 (Acc. 98568); January (Acc. 98839) and February (Acc. 98844, 87861) 2001; May 2002 (Acc. 99259); March (Acc. 99463); September 2003 (Acc. 99621); June 2004 (Acc. 99815); October 2006 (Acc. 100520); January 2008 (Acc. 100845). Received from Kevin Bezner in May 2005 (Acc. 100048).

Online Catalog Terms

American poetry--North Carolina--20th century.

Beam, Jeffery, 1953- .

Broughton, James Richard, 1913- .

Gay communities--North Carolina.

Gay men's writings, American.

Meyer, Thomas, 1947- .

North Carolina--Intellectual life--20th century.

North Carolina--Poetry.

Poets, American--Correspondence.

Poets, American--North Carolina--History--20th century.

Sauve, Damon.

Williams, Jonathan, 1929- .

Related Collection

Oyster Boy Review Records (#4897)

Biographical Note

Jeffery Beam's lyrical, metaphysical work fuses the physical and spiritual worlds, creating a conversation between the natural world, the body, and the spirit. Beam is the author of nine books of poems, The Golden Legend (Floating Island, 1981), Two Preludes for the Beautiful (Universal, 1981, limited edition), Midwinter Fires (French Broad, 1990, nominated for a 1991-1992 Pushcart Prize), The Fountain (North Carolina Wesleyan College Press, 1992, nominated as a Notable Book by the American Library Association), Visions of Dame Kind (The Jargon Society, 1995), Submergences (Off the Cuff Books, 1997, nominated for an American Library Association Gay/Lesbian Book Award), little (diminishing books, Green Finch Press, 1997), Light & Shadow: The Photographs of Claire Yaffa (Aperture Books, 1997), and An Elizabethan Bestiary: Retold (Horse & Buggy Press, 1999, awarded an 2000 IPPY Award as one of the Ten Best Books of the Year--with a special notation for Best Book Arts Craftsmanship from Independent Publisher magazine, awarded one of the 50 Books 2000 Awards from the American Institute for the Graphic Arts).

Two recently completed volumes seek publishers: "The Beautiful Tendons: Uncollected Queer Poems, 1977-2000," and "The Broken Flower." He is currently at work on a enhanced compact disk of new and selected poems entitled "What We Have Lost," the libretto for an opera on the myth of Demeter and Persephone, a poem sequence "The Seven Deadly Sins and Seven Virtues," "They Say: A Commonplace Book on Poetry and the Spirit," and a manuscript "The Life of the Bee." The distinguished composer Lee Hoiby has recently accepted a commission to set five of the "Life of the Bee" poems to music. This work will premier in late spring 2002 at the opening celebrations of the new University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Institute for the Arts and Humanities building.

Beam has published widely in small magazines and anthologies, including Word and Witness: 100 Years of North Carolina Poetry, The Son of the Male Muse, Earth and Soul: A Russion/English Anthology of North Carolina Poetry, The Asheville Poetry Review, Brightleaf A Southern Review of Books, North Carolina Literary Review, Pembroke Magazine, Sparks of fire: Blake in a New Age, The Double Dealer Redux, Cardinal, The Carolina Quarterly, The Harvard Gay & Lesbian Review, modern words, Evergreen Chronicles, Oyster Boy Review, The James White Review, Gay Roots: 20 Years of Gay Sunshine, The Worcester Review, Dreamworks, Black Men/White Men, Kiss of the Whip, and Yellow Silk (first ten year anthology). In 1998, his short poems were subject of a special issue of Hummingbird: The Magazine of the Short Poem. In late 2000, his work will be featured in Charlotte, North Carolina's Main Street Rag. His book reviews and criticism have appeared in The Advocate, Smithsonian, The Front Page, Garden Design, The North Carolina Literary Review, The American Book Review, The Christian Science Monitor, Lambda Book Report, The Harvard Gay & Lesbian Review, The Independent Weekly, Small Press Review, Yellow Silk, and loblolly.

Beam has been a judge in the Poetry Division of the Lambda Book Awards for ten years, and, in 1996, served as preliminary judge in The Independent Weekly's annual poetry contest. In the spring 1996, he began teaching workshops, among them "The Dog of Art in the Garden of Toads," and "Fossil Poetry: Seeing the Word, Hearing the World," sponsored by the North Carolina Writers Network. With grants and other support from the Durham and Orange County Arts Council, the Mary Duke Biddle Foundation, the Duke Museum of Art, the North Carolina Zoological Park, and private contributions, the publication of An Elizabethan Bestiary: Retold included exhibitions at DUMA, the North Carolina Zoological Park, and readings and interactive presentations across North Carolina during 1999. The Duke University student newspaper, The Chronicle, chose the Bestiary exhibit as the best exhibit on campus during the academic year 1998-1999. Beam was recently interviewed for the Duke Triangle Rainbow Oral History Project.

Beam is the recipient of a 1991 Orange County Emerging Artist Grant from the Durham Arts Council, a 1998-1999 Grant from the Mary Duke Biddle Foundation, and a 2000 Office of the Provost Public Service Award from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Center for Public Service. In 2000, he served as one of ten notable Parade Masters for the North Carolina Gay Pride Parade. He and his poetry are the subject of North Carolina filmmaker Tom Whiteside's experimental film, PoemBeam. The author, born and raised in Kannapolis, N.C., earned his Bachelor of Creative Arts from University of North Carolina at Charlotte in 1975. At UNCC, he served as first poetry editor, then editor of the arts magazine Sanskrit.

Poetry editor of Oyster Boy Review (www.oysterboyreview.com), and an occasional contributor to Lambda Book Review, Beam is also known for readings that bring together music, poetry, and theater. Beam oftentimes sings his own poems as well as the poetry of others, incorporating Afro-American and Bluegrass gospel, show tunes, and folk songs into his performances. 2000 marks the eighth year he will perform "Winter Stories for Children of All Ages" at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He lives in Hillsborough, N.C., and works as the assistant to the biology librarian in the Botany Library at the UNC-Chapel Hill.

(Biographical note supplied by Jeffery Beam, February 2001.)

Collection Overview

The collection includes papers, correspondence, poetry notebooks, publications, and other related materials of writer  Jeffery Beam. Correspondence documents his role as an active member in the literary and gay communities. Also included are drafts and publication materials for his published books and files pertaining to his unpublished collections of poetry. There is also correspondence with poets Jonathan Williams, Thomas Meyer, James Broughton, and Damon Sauve, editor of Oyster Boy Review.

Note that box 33 of correspondence is CLOSED to researchers until 2075; correspondence with Tom Ray and Damon Sauve is CLOSED until 2048; unprocessed additions are CLOSED pending processing.

Organization of Collection

Processed materials
Unprocessed additions

Series Descriptions