Papers of Andrew Schelling, American poet, translator, editor, and teacher. The collection documents his career as a poet, essayist, editor, ecologist, translator of classical Indian poetry, and as a professor at Naropa University. Schelling's papers include correspondence, manuscripts, drafts, translations, teaching files, and photographs dating primarily from 1978-2012.
Andrew Schelling Papers, 1948-2012 (bulk 1978-2012) (MSS 745)
Restrictions: Original sound recordings are restricted. Listening copies may be available.
Extent: 19.2 Linear feet (45 archives boxes, 3 flat box folders, 1 map case folder)
Poet and translator Andrew Crombie Schelling was born January 14, 1953 in Washington, D.C. He grew up in the Boston area and graduated from Lexington High School in 1970. After studying at the University of Rochester from 1971-1973, Schelling made his first trip to India and then transferred to the University of California, Santa Cruz. On the west coast, Schelling began studying poetry, Zen Buddhism, and Sanskrit. He received his B.A. in religious studies from UCSC in 1975, and then continued studying Sanskrit and Asian literature at UC Berkeley. Lacking departmental support for his proposed master's thesis on linguist and poet Jaime de Angulo, Schelling left UCB in 1980.
Schelling continued writing poetry and translating Sanskrit. With Benjamin Friedlander, he edited the poetry journals Jimmy & Lucy's House of "K" (1984-1991), Chumolungma Globe (1987) and Dark Ages Clasp the Daisy Root (1991-1994). He also worked at Moe's Books and Shambhala Booksellers in Berkeley, studied Zen with the Berkeley Zen Center and Green Gulch Farms, and taught Asian literature and ethnopoetics at Maybeck High School in Berkeley.
After two years of teaching as guest faculty at Naropa Institute's Summer Writing Program, Schelling was invited to join the faculty full time. He moved to Boulder, Colorado in 1990 to teach poetry for Naropa's Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics and Sanskrit translation for the Religious Studies department. At Naropa, Schelling developed a concentration in translation, chaired the Writing and Poetics department from 1993-1996, and founded the Kavyayantra Press. His classes include poetry workshops, bioregional poetry, ethnopoetics, Indian poetry, contemplative traditions, and wilderness writing.
Schelling's published works include several books of poetry, two collections of essays, and translations from Sanskrit, Indian vernacular languages, and Arapaho. His book of Sanskrit translations, Dropping the Bow: Poems from Ancient India (1991), received the Harold Morton Landon Translation Award from the Academy of American Poets. Schelling also received two grants from the Wittner Bynner Foundation for Poetry and a Contemplative Practice Fellowship from the American Council of Learned Societies. Schelling is noted for his use of bioregionalism and ecopoetics in his writing.
The Andrew Schelling Papers contain biographical information, correspondence, manuscript drafts, translations, teaching files, and photographs documenting the career of American poet and translator Andrew Schelling from 1978-2012.
Arranged in the following series: 1) BIOGRAPHICAL, 2) CORRESPONDENCE, 3) WRITINGS BY SCHELLING, 4) COLLABORATIVE WRITINGS, 5) WRITINGS BY OTHERS, 6) TEACHING FILES and 7) PHOTOGRAPHS.