The d.a. levy Collection at the Michael Schwartz Library, established in 2003, was created to preserve and enhance access to historical material by and about Cleveland's legendary poet, publisher and artist d.a. levy.
Although d.a. levy created tremendous amounts of poetry and art in his short life, little of his original creations or personal effects remain. Prior to his death, levy destroyed or gave away all of what remained in his possession. Cleveland State University Library has acquired portions of it from his friends and other sources to create the d.a. levy Collection. Adding to what had already existed here on levy from the Cleveland Press Collection (largely still photograph and newspaper clipping accounts of his arrests) the collection has grown to include bound works of poetry created by levy and his contemporaries, original manuscript/draft portions of his poetry, correspondence to and from levy, drawings, photo collages, handmade booklets and other related period ephemera. The collection also includes an almost complete set of his alternative press newspapers of which many of the editions are beginning to show signs of deterioration, presenting preservation challenges.
Materials in the collection reside in the Special Collections Department and are housed in acid free folders and boxes. In
an effort to reduce wear on the originals and to distribute levy's work to a wider audience, portions of the collection were
digitized and made available on the
d.a. levy Collection website in Cleveland Memory.
This finding aid describes in detail the contents of boxed paper correspondence, art, poetry and other ephemera already housed in the established manuscript collection in Special Collections. Wherever copyright is permissible and the item is digitized, a link to the digital version on the d.a. levy Collection website is provided.