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Illustration by: Ann Mikolowski

Writing the River (WTR) is a demonstration digitization project focusing on urban poetry from the 1960s and 1970s in Detroit and Windsor. This project was funded by a small grant from the Michigan Humanities Council and the National Endowment for the Humanities, with the Wayne State University Library System acting as the Lead Grant Participant. Included in the digital collection are scanned images and text from small-press poetry books, chapbooks, broadsides, etc. The physical items are, in many cases, cherished pieces from authors' or poets' own collections, sometimes rare and in delicate condition.

Project Essay: "Borderlines 1960/70" - Richard Hornsey is a Windsor poet and retired Creative Writing Professor from the University of Windsor. A participant in the Windsor literary scene from the 1970s on, his book Going In (Fiddlehead Poetry Books, 1972), is included in this project. This essay was commissioned for the Writing the River Project.

On Poetry in Detroit, 1930s to 1970s - An excerpt from the introduction to the anthology Abandon Automobile: Detroit City Poetry 2001, edited by Melba Joyce Boyd and M. L. Liebler (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2001).

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