Title

The Rylands Brief: Robyn Marsack

Creator

Smith, Jessica

Marsack, Robyn

Dessaline, Guillaume (Editor)

Description

In Episode 5 of The Rylands Brief, archivist Jessica Smith talks to writer and editor Robyn Marsack about her work with Carcanet Press, which began in 1983, and most recently led to her editing Fifty Fifty, a collection of letters to celebrate Carcanet’s jubilee.

In this conversation she talks to Jess about her discoveries in the archives while working on that book, explaining how one poet's archive included a vinyl LP of Yuri Gagarin's reminiscences of his space walk, and how the correspondence of John Ash and John Ashbery seemed to extend her appreciation of their poems.

This podcast features items from an exhibition which celebrates 50 years of Carcanet poetry press, an exhibition which was installed in the John Rylands Research Institute and Library in Manchester in mid-March 2020. The week that it was due to open, the Rylands closed as a result of the pandemic.

The Rylands Brief is devised and written by John McAuliffe at the Centre for New Writing and Jessica Smith at the John Rylands Research Institute and Library. Thanks to Guillaume Dujat des Allimes for sound tech.

Date

2020