52 • The Writer’s Chronicle • Volume 43 Number 4 Filling a Void: The American Writers Museum: A Museum Whose Time Has Come by Robert H. Jackson
…this museum would celebrate and share America’s literary achievements—past and present… this place would be shrine to literary excellence, a monument to books and their creators, and a national center name popped into my head the other day. A name I hadn’t of gravity for the written word. thought about for years. Van Wyck Brooks. You might have heardA of him. He was a wonderfully readable critic and literary biographer, active through the first half American soul in all its raucous diversity, and like lives and often interesting vices. We know that of the 20th century. Though mostly out of print Walt Whitman, “contain multitudes.” the book and its manuscript and its author are today, Brooks won the Pulitzer Prize in 1937, and You could make a museum like this dull. But intimately bound to their historical moment, with made the cover of Time magazine in 1949. His it would take a lot of work. America has a gift for all its follies and delusions. We also appreciate that masterwork was a five-volume, blockbuster survey outrageous fictional creations. Their creators are at the great writer and great book soar beyond their called Makers and Finders: a History of the Writer in least as interesting: Mark Twain piloting a steamboat; own period, and speak to new generations with America, 1800–1915. Brooks was a generous Vladimir Nabokov and his butterfly net; O. Henry continuing immediacy. historian who picked forgotten writers (“minnows” in jail; Zora Neale Hurston taking notes at a voodoo Finally, the collector knows what’s out there. We Time called them) out of obscurity, dusted them off, rite; Hart Crane, smiling and waving as he slips know the incredible trove of books, manuscripts, and displayed them alongside the “big fish” in his beneath the waves. Van Wyck Brooks could give you and artifacts that are hidden away in the hundreds panorama of American prose. dozens more examples. Tom Robbins is right to call of special collections and private libraries that I thought about Brooks in connection with an idea us “the least boring country on earth.” specialize in American writers. We know that if put forward by an organization called The American Why should the idea of an American Writers even a fraction of this material would be allowed to Writers Museum Foundation. I think it’s a splendid Museum particularly appeal to me? I’m a lifelong circulate through an American Writers Museum, it idea, and I think that if Van Wyck Brooks were alive collector of rare books. I’ve assembled at least six would be a priceless gift to the nation. today, he’d think so too. major collections and distributed them to libraries Anyone who’s ever met a writer might wonder The idea is that the United States should and special collections around the country. I am why anyone would ever want to build a museum to have an American Writers Museum. That this especially fortunate to have original manuscripts honor these creatures. Writers can be fairly marginal museum would celebrate and share America’s of (among others) Rockwell Kent, Alan Ginsberg, characters. No parent could responsibly urge their literary achievements—past and present. That and William Burroughs. (Ginsberg and Burroughs child to live in emulation of William Faulkner or this place would be a shrine to literary excellence, themselves have been guests in my home.) Yes, Tupac Shakur. Writing is an odd, solitary vocation, a monument to books and their creators, and a collectors know the price of all these things; but suited to the introvert, the outsider, the opposite of national center of gravity for the written word. The we also know their value. We are avid readers, the stereotypical American glad-hander. Even our Museum under consideration would be profoundly worshippers of the written word, and pretty much sunniest authors, our Emersons and Frank L. Baums, and characteristically American—of, by, and for always fans of the authors we collect. struggle with something dark and unaccountable. In the people. It would be a proud carnival of our Collectors know the joy of bringing a book or Herman Melville and Hemingway, it literally breaks artifact into what Walter Benjamin calls “the magic the surface. Darkest of all may be our humorists: S.J. circle” of possession. The fascination of seeing the Perelman, Dorothy Parker, Hunter S. Thompson, Robert H. Jackson, a senior partner at the Cleveland law Final Proof of a favorite book. The knowledge and Ambrose Bierce. firm, Kohrman Jackson & Krantz P.L.L. and a rare book that can be gleaned from studying an original As soon as you start making a list of names, you consultant, is a noted collector of rare books, antiquities, manuscript, covered over with an author’s notes, realize that this is the Museum of the American and tribal art. He has widely lectured about literature, rare emendations, cigarette burns and wine stains. We Writer—not solely the American novelist, or books, libraries, and travel throughout the U.S. and Europe. know that writers are human beings with complex journalist, or historian. Now we see the full scope of February 2011 • The Writer’s Chronicle • 53 this project, and its potential to encompass the whole the dreams of parents around the world. American is Chicago (Edna Ferber, Ernest Hemingway, Saul of the American life and spirit, past and present, movies and popular music are among our chief Bellow, Raymond Chandler, Shel Silverstein… need high and low. Any roll call of American writers exports—and American writers are party to both. I say more?) While it may be possible to cavil against would include Barack Obama, Caryl Chessman, People have been predicting the death of the some details, you have to admire the scope of their Cotton Mather, George Plimpton, Davy Crockett… written word since the beginning of the 20th century. vision and the impressive list of those who support the roster goes on and on until you realize that the Radio, video, and the internet were each in their and approve of the Museum in concept. American writer occupies every corner of American turn expected to replace writing with a simpler, American books speak through their words, their life, and relates to every chapter of our national story. more direct form of communication. But writing has covers, their pages, and their history. The American A case may be made for the writer as the universal not only persisted, it has thrived. The internet has Writers Museum will enshrine these objects and their American. There is room for everyone on the great proven to be the world’s most capacious bookstore gloriously individual creators. It will be a National stage of authorship. The American writer is native and library. Blogs and social media have turned a Gallery of the mind; a congress of the American spirit; and immigrant; judge, criminal, and victim; the whole generation into critics and commentators, and an ongoing carnival of our verbal heritage. As a enactor of history and its recorder. Those who were generating words in unprecedented volume. Blogger lifelong reader and collector of American writing, I marginalized and excluded by the rest of society Anne Trubek of Oberlin College wrote an essay eagerly look forward to the realization of this much- found their voice as American writers. American to this effect, titled “We Are All Writers Now”— needed enterprise. Who knows? There may even be books have been leading indicators of social change, possibly earning herself an entry in some future a place in it for Van Wyck Brooks. AWP from Common Sense to Uncle Tom’s Cabin and The online version of “Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations.” Feminine Mystique. The American Writers Museum Foundation has The government of the United States of America produced an admirable prospectus outlining the was created by writers. Benjamin Franklin, Thomas details of their proposed museum. It’s a good, solid Get Involved Jefferson, and John Adams not only wrote, but wrote plan. They envisage an experience built around a well. They and other founders wrote books long core overview of American literature, surrounded Share Your Vision for The American Writers before they wrote our nation’s founding documents. by individual author exhibits, temporary themed Museum by taking an online survey at: We have the world’s first government based upon exhibits, a Hall of Honor, a Poets’ Corner, and the written word, and continue to study, debate, generous helpings of art and illustration associated
Northern Michigan University Home of Passages North Programs Northern Michigan University offers a 48-credit-hour MFA degree with a specialty in poetry, fiction, or creative nonfiction. Write Up North We also offer a 32-credit-hour MA degree with a specialty in Faculty Recent Guest Writers writing, literature, or pedagogy. Kate Myers Hanson Tom Bissell Austin Hummell Mary Clearman Blew MFA candidates are selected primarily on the basis of the Jennifer A. Howard Robert Olen Butler portfolio submitted. Teaching fellowships and assistantships Ron Johnson Lan Samantha Chang are available; candidates with teaching experience and/or a Paul Lehmberg Dennis Covington master’s degree will be given special consideration. Deadline Beverly Matherne John D’Agata for MFA and MA applications is February 1. Diane Sautter Carl Dennis John Smolens Andre Dubus III For More Information Jim Harrison Paul Lehmberg, director, MFA program in creative writing Pam Houston [email protected], www.nmu.edu/mfa Bret Anthony Johnston Russell Prather, director, MA programs in English Ilya Kaminsky [email protected], www.nmu.edu/english Thomas Lynch Elizabeth McCracken Leslie Adrienne Miller Northern Michigan University Tim O’Brien is located in Marquette, Michigan, Scott Russell Sanders on the shore of Lake Superior. Aeronwy Thomas Jeff VandeZande NMU is an equal opportunity institution