PATRICIA FILIPOWSKA (1924-1993)
PAPERS, 1930?-1997
(bulk
1971-1992)
5.9 linear feet
|
ACQUISITION: |
The papers
(donor no. 214) were donated by Richard
E. Filipowski in 1994 and succeeding years. |
|
ACCESS: |
The papers
are open for research. |
|
COPYRIGHT: |
Copyright has been
transferred to the |
|
PHOTOGRAPHS: |
In |
|
PROCESSED BY: |
George Mullally,
1995, 1997 and 1998. [FilipowskaPatricia.doc] |
Biography
Patricia (Parker) Filipowska
was born September 6, 1924 in Burlington, Iowa, the only child of Helen and
Guerdon ("Spike") Parker.
After graduating in 1942 from Burlington High School with honors in art
and poetry, Parker studied art at the Art Institute of Chicago and writing and
poetry at the University of Chicago. She
subsequently enrolled at the Institute of Design in Chicago where she studied
visual design and architecture. Many of
her drawings and graphics are in the archives of the Chicago Historical
Society.
While at the Institute of Design, Parker met fellow
student Richard ("Filip") Filipowski whom she married in 1946. In 1950 Richard Filipowski
was invited by Walter Gropius to organize and teach
the course "Designing Fundamentals" in the Graduate School of Design
at Harvard University. They moved to
Cambridge, and subsequently to Lexington, Massachusetts, where they raised their
three sons, Stefan, Matthew, and David.
By the mid-1970s, Filipowska
had turned her attention more fully to poetry and in 1981 she enrolled in the
Poetry Seminars conducted by Kinereth Gensler at Radcliffe
College. For her pen name she chose
neither her maiden name nor her husband's name but the Slavic feminine form of
her husband's name, Filipowska. Almost all of the poetry that she wrote over
the next twelve years was the result of her involvement in these seminars. By 1993 she had written over one hundred and
eighty poems and her working drafts reveal the immense effort she put into
their revision. At her death she left
behind a manuscript of one hundred poems entitled, Original Draft Of Anthology Of Poems,
culled from her collection. The poems themselves
were fully realized; some had already been published. But she had not yet made the choice of how
best to put them together to make unified wholes. Her husband engaged Kinereth
Gensler, her seminar professor, to do the required
arranging and editing. The result was an
anthology of sixty-two poems selected from her original manuscript and
published posthumously in 1993 under the title The Well. The work is in
four sections. Two of them deal with her
relationship to Iowa, while the others concern the disparate aspects of her
life as a woman and her personal losses.
According to Gensler, her professor, editor,
and friend, "A primary force underlying Patricia Filipowska's
poems is her enduring relationship with Iowa.
She was deeply committed to poetry and to her work as a poet. She observed the world with cool curiosity
and a passionate heart." Patricia Filipowska died of cancer on March 15, 1993.
Scope and
Content Note
The Patricia Filipowska papers date from 1930? to
1995 and measure 5.9 linear
feet. The papers are
arranged in seven series: Biographical
materials, Calendars, Correspondence, Writings, Sketches and graphics, Family
papers, and Photographs.
The first series, Biographical
materials (1946-1994), is arranged alphabetically in five subseries. The
first, Biography, includes clippings of book reviews from two Burlington, Iowa,
newspapers and letters solicited by Filip Filipowski from Cay Burk, Ruth Feldman, and Beatrice
Takeuchi giving their reminiscences of Patricia Filipowska. The second subseries,
Letters to Myself, is a posthumously discovered private diary, dated October
28, 1974 to March 27, 1978, containing Filipowska’s
thoughts about her personal life, her relationship with her husband, Richard,
and their ongoing problems with their son, David. It also reveals the intimacy she continued to
feel for her artist friend in Burlington, Iowa, Robert Burrus. The third subseries,
Poetry workshop materials, contains lists of poems
submitted for review in various Radcliffe Poetry
Seminars; class lists; course assignments and notes; and communications with
fellow students. The fourth subseries, Travel, contains Filipowska's passports and miscellaneous travel receipts,
gift lists, packing lists, and tourist brochures. The fifth subseries
is an apparent separate diary in a commercially
produced notebook entitled, A Woman’s Notebook.
It contains only two entries, dated January 12, 1980 and July 4, 1981,
respectively.
The second series, Calendars
(1980-1992), consists of thirteen appointment calendars that are as much diaristic in nature as they are records of activities and
appointments.
The third series, Correspondence
(1945-1994), includes letters to the editor, letters of rejection, and extensive
letters from the Filipowski's son and
daughter-in-law, Matthew and Yvonne Filipowski of
Amsterdam and from Filipowska's parents, Helen and
Guerdon Parker of Burlington, Iowa, as well as from many other friends and
associates.
The fourth series, Writings
(1940-1993), is comprised of six subseries. The first, Early
writings, contains essays and poetry from Filipowska's
student days at Burlington (Iowa) High School and the University of Chicago.
The second subseries, Radcliffe
Poetry Seminars, forms the heart of this entire
collection. These 182 poems, each in its
own folder, constitute Filipowska's working
file. They are arranged by the author
into thematic units such as Childhood, Iowa, Family, and Illness. Most are represented by multiple versions
showing the author's efforts continually to revise and improve her art. It is this feature, above all, which will
recommend this collection to the student of poetic composition. The third subseries
contains three notebooks of poems assembled in various
combinations by the author at different times.
The first notebook, described internally by the author as "very
old", is a group of sixty-four poems in simple numerical arrangement, most
having extensive revisions. A second
"red" notebook containing about one hundred and fifty poems, appears to be the author's first attempt at arranging
her completed poems into thematic units, each again having extensive
interlinear revisions. The third or
"black" notebook is labelled Original Draft of Anthology of Poems,
containing 100 poems as selected and arranged by Filipowska
in anticipation of their eventual publication.
The fourth subseries consists
of poems submitted for the Grolier Poetry Prize from 1978 to 1987. The fifth subseries
consists of the published anthology of poems entitled The Well, containing 62 poems as
posthumously published in 1993. The
sixth and last subseries is
a collection of Miscellaneous gift verses and limericks.
The fifth series, Sketches and
graphics (1944-1962) contain drawings done by Filipowska
between 1952 and 1962 while living at the couple’s first home in Lexington,
Massachusetts. There are also two sketchbooks, the first dated 1944 to 1946,
containing samples of her work from her student days at the School of Design in
Chicago and the second, dated 1958 to 1959, containing self-portraits and other
drawings.
The sixth series, Family papers
(1991-1995), consists of Filip Filipowski's
designs called "Pub drawings" and the memoirs of his own childhood in
Canada entitled Terra Cotta Episodes
1927-1932.
The last series, Photographs
(1930?-1994), contains 55 photographs, chiefly of Filipowska,
beginning at about age six in 1930, but also including photographs of her
husband Filip, their three sons, Filipowska's
parents, and close friends and associates.
Also included are photographs of Robert Burrus,
Filipowska’s artist friend of Burlington, Iowa,
together with photographs of his art reliefs.
The
Well (Lexington, MA: R.E. Filipowski, c1993) is shelved
with printed works, in the Iowa Authors Collection in the Special Collections
Department, and in the general collection in the Main Library.
Box no. Description
Box 1
Biographical materials
Biography, 1946-1994,
scattered
Letters to Myself (private
diary)
Oct. 28, 1974-Apr.29, 1975
May 1, 1975-Aug. 7, 1975
Aug. 17,
1975-Apr 2.
1976
Apr. 12, 1976-Aug. 9, 1976
Aug. 26, 1976-Dec. 29, 1976
Dec. 29, 1976-Aug. 15, 1977
Poetry workshops, 1976-1989
Travel, 1946-1985, scattered
A Woman’s Notebook, Jan. 12,
1980 and July 4, 1981
Box
2
Calendars
1980
1981
1982
1983
1984
1985
1986
1987
1988
Box 3
1989
1990
1991
1992
Correspondence
Letters to the editor,
1973-1985, scattered
Letters of rejection,
1977-1992
Family, 1946-1997
Filipowski, David, 1975-1986,
scattered
Filipowski, Matthew and Yvonne,
1971-1992
1971-1980
Box 4
1981-1984
1985-1992
Filipowski, Pat
To Richard Filipowski, 1945-1988, scattered
To Helen and Guerdon Parker,
1982-1986
To Beatrice Takeuchi,
1978-1987
Filipowski, Richard (“Filip”)
From Georgeanne Conant, Jan.-Apr. 1997
To Pat Filipowski,
1948-1991, scattered
Filipowski, Stefan, 1961-1988,
scattered
Grupe, Ida ("Nana"),
1946
Grupe, Lois, 1973?-1991
Parker, Helen and Guerdon ("Spike")
1946-1972
1973-1974
1975-1976
Box 5
1977-1992, scattered
General, 1971-1994
A--B
Burrus, Alice and Robert
C--D
E--F
Foster, Shirley, 1982-1992
F--G
Gilberg, Doris
1982-1985
1986-1988
G--J
K—N
Box 6
Nunlist, Juli,
1982-1990
O--Sa
Sc--T
Takeuchi, Beatrice,
1978-1990
Tyler, Mary M., 1980-1989
Victor
W--Z
Writings
Early writings
Essays
Burlington (Iowa) High
School, 1940-1942
University of Chicago, 1943
Poetry, 1940-1947
Box 7
Radcliffe Poetry Seminars, 1981-1993
Classified
Register
A. Childhood
A-1. Snapshots of an Only Child
A-2. Poppy
A-3. Returning Mrs. Griffel's Casserole
A-4. The Birthday Party
A-5. Hearing the Grandfather
Clock
A-6. In This Heat I Think of
Celestine
A-7. What to Say
A-8. Missing Show and Tell
A-9. If the Word Is String
A-10. What Gertrude Meant
A-11. The Strangers
A-12. The Serious Summer
A-13. Let Go
A-14. Looking at a Fortune Cookie
A-15. Schooling
A-16. Finding the Place
B. Iowa
B-1. Myth
B-2. At the Airport
B-3. The Day Lilies of
B-4. Warning Signs
B-5. From the Levee
B-6. Japanese Silk Seen From the
Air
Box 8
B-7. Taking Leave
B-8. The Well
B-9. Flying Back Home to Iowa
C. Family
C-1. One Afternoon
C-2. Sons
C-3. Squirrels
C-4. A Long Romance
C-5. Seeing You Long Distance
C-6. Great-Aunt Beebee
C-7. The Candle
C-8. The Rhinoceros
C-9. On Her Ninetieth Birthday
C-10. For Milo, Three, and Ilya, Six
C-11. Filing Her Nails
C-12. La Gioconda
C-13. In This Place
D. Portraits
D-1. Telephone Call on a Snowy
Night
D-2. The Unmarried Son to an Old
Friend
D-3. The Caller
D-4. Talking Out Loud to an Old
Lady's Son
E. Illness
E-1. Apopointment
E-2. Going Under
E-3. Shipwreck
E-4. Monday Morning Tryst
E-5. The Amazons
Box 9
E-6. The Gallery of Dr. Canzanelli
E-7. How It Happens
E-8. Two Flights Up, Down With a
Fever
E-9. The Day
E-10. Identity
E-11. Attaining Perfection
F. Loss and Unease
F-1. Near the End of Autumn
F-2. Fourth of July
F-3. Answering Your Letter
F-4. July
F-5. Word of His Death
F-6. That Day in May
F-7. Learning From
Memory
F-8. Unease
F-9. Degrees of Patience
F-10. Taking Things Personally
F-11. Clearings
F-12. Word From
an Unconceived Daughter
F-13. Worry-Beads
F-14. Thinking Back
F-15. Day Six
F-16. What It Was Like
G. Shaped Poems and On Art
G-1. Sunset
G-2. Venetian Glass
G-3. A Poem on the Fresh Snow
G-4. Circuit Hurt
G-5. Course in Photography
G-6. The Bridge
G-7. Great Mistakes
G-8. Couple's Therapy
Box 10
H. Dreams and Illusions
H-1. The Vanishing Point
H-2. Hurt
H-3. Intermission
H-4. On Route 425 in Late March
H-5. Back Through the Door
H-6. Ladder
H-7. In Another Life
H-8. Out-Of-Body Travel
H-9. A Source of Light
H-10. The Red Dress in a Yellow
Field
H-11. Dancing With the Cows
H-12. The Sign
H-13. The Lake Again
I. Creatures
I-1. Sharing My Pillow With a Cat
I-2. O Cat
I-3. Bliss
I-4. Advice to Birds
I-5. Appetites
I-6. Downfall
I-7. Bee
I-8. The Starfish
I-9. Miscued in Mid-Winter
I-10. Agelaius
Phoeniceus
I-11. Crow-Poem
Box 11
I-12. Backyard Midway
I-13. Here It Is
I-14. Maia
in My Lap
I-15. Poem in September
I-16. What Is Left
J. Words, Sounds, and
Writing
J-1. Snow Scene Without the Letter S
J-2. Early Spring Words
J-3. According to Guinness
J-4. Small Sounds
J-5. Derivations
J-6. A Stanza
J-7. Rewriting After a Long Dry
Spell
K. Landscapes and Seasons
K-1. View of Christmas
K-2. Earth
K-3. Astronauts
K-4. February Thaw
K-5. An Old Hand
K-8. Puzzle
K-9. Mountainside Bath in
Vermont
K-10. The Round Trip
K-11. Paradox
K-12. On a Flexible Flyer
K-13. Vacation Poem
K-14. The Norway Maple Saplings
K-15. Complaint
L. Forms and Light Verse
L-1. To E. P.
L-2. On Dismissing an Old Love
L-3. To the Dark Glasses
L-4. On the Beach
L-5. School Girl, Ticking
Box 12
L-6. The Bizarre Bazaar
L-7. Purple Ladders
L-8. Far-Sighted
L-9. Tea Room
L-10. Closet Blues
L-12. Learning From
Memory
L-13. The Day
L-14. A Footnote
L-15. A Make-Shift Spring
L-18. The Royal Response
L-20. Chelonia
on a Log
L-21. Counting to Five Hundred
Unclassified
The Actress
Appointment
Aspects of Democracy
Belated Note to Her Son
Birthday Morning
A Centipede
Connection
A Day After
a Light Snowfall
Exercises
Fishing
Free
Hank
Hartshorn
Box 13
Here I Am
If You Can't Stand the Heat
Images
The Lineman Mutters
Old Man's Song
On Sunday Morning
On Writing Poems
The Return
A School Girl Sings
Simplicity
Solstice
Summary
Thaw
Three Moon Poems
Time Machine
Tunes for the Ides of March
Under the Spell of Yard Work
The Unmarried Son in His
Mother's House
Valentine’s Day
Virtual Volume
What Does Bother Me
Words
Working It Out
Notebooks
"Very old" notebook
"Red" notebook
Box 14
"Black" notebook: Original Draft of Anthology of Poems
(100 poems, of which 62 were selected for publication in The Well)
Grolier Poetry Prize
submissions, 1978-1987
Published poetry
Manuscript list of published
poetry
The Well, 1993 [removed to printed works collection and cataloged separately]
Miscellaneous gift verses
and limericks
Sketches and graphics
Institute of Design,
Chicago, 1944-1946 [shelved in map case: drawer 5]
Sketchbooks
1952-1962
Self-portrait and drawings,
1958-1959 [shelved in map case: drawer 5]
Family papers
Filipowski, Richard
Pub drawings, 1991-1995
Terra Cotta Episodes 1927-1932, undated
Box 15
Photographs, 1930?-1994
Burrus, Robert
Filipowska, Patricia, and family (4
folders)