Presentation about Poet Isabella Gardner, April 29
While working on a critical history of The Kenyon Review, Dutch scholar Marian Janssen came across the letters of a certain Isabella Gardner and began an investigation that brought her to Washington University Libraries.
The letters weren't from the famous arts patron, Isabella Stewart Gardner, whose name still adorns a Boston museum, but rather her niece, a gifted but now somewhat forgotten poet of the mid-20th-century. Curious, Janssen set out to learn more about her, and that search led her to the Isabella Gardner Papers, which are housed in the Libraries' Special Collections. In December of 2010, Janssen's biography of the poet was published by the University of Missouri Press.
Janssen returns to the Libraries on Friday, April 29, to give a talk about her new book, titled Not at All What One Is Used To: The Life and Times of Isabella Gardner. Free and open to the public, the 4 p.m. event will include a lecture as well as a brief audio recording of Gardner reading her poetry, with a reception following. It will be held in Olin Library's Ginkgo Reading Room (Level 1).
