The correspondence of an important member of the 'post-beat' West Coast poetry community. The bulk of the collection covers the period from 1957 to 1972. Included are letters, cards, drawings, and poems from Joe Brainard, Robert Creeley, Robert Duncan, Allen Ginsberg, Jack Spicer, Lewis Warsh, and Philip Whalen. Also included are eight folders of correspondence between Kyger and Gary Snyder, to whom Kyger was married from 1960 to 1964. The Kyger/Snyder letters range from August 1958 to February 1975, with the bulk of the materials falling between August 1958 and December 1959, the period during which Kyger and Snyder were preparing for their 1960 marriage in Kyoto, Japan. Kyger divorced Snyder in 1964 and married the painter Jack Boyce in 1966. The collection includes much ephemera from the travels of Boyce and Kyger through Europe.

Joanne Kyger is a West Coast poet who emerged as the Beat movement was beginning to wane in the 1960s. The daughter of Jacob and Anne Kyger, she was born 19 November 1934. Her father's career as a navy officer led to a peripatetic early life: by the time she was fourteen she had lived in Vallejo, Ca. (where she was born), China, Washington, Pennsylvania, Florida, and Illinois. Her father retired in 1949, and the family settled permanently in Santa Barbara, Ca.

3.40 linear feet (9 archives boxes)

Publication rights are held by the creator of the collection.