Items

• Two Stories from Come Back, Dr. Caligari
  "Mr. Barthelme's bizarre vision of life may terrify you, confound you, infuriate you, or just plain amuse you, but we guarantee that it will not leave you indifferent." Prior to the publication of Donald Barthelme's first collection, publisher Little, Brown and Company sent out an advance copy of two of the stories, along with an introductory letter from Associate Editor (and University of Houston chum) Herman Gollob.
• Forum
  After completing his time in the service, Barthelme returned to the University of Houston both as a student and an employee in the university publications office. He redeveloped an existing publication into Forum, an interdisciplinary magazine which featured authors such as Walker Percy and Marshall McLuhan.
• Photographs of Donald Barthelme
• Donald Barthelme (left) in the Cougar office, Houstonian
  Donald Barthelme attended the University of Houston as an undergraduate (although he never graduated). In 1951, he became the youngest editor in the history of the school's newspaper the Cougar. By 1952, he was working as an arts and entertainment reviewer for local newspaper the Houston Post, while still writing columns for the Cougar.
• Photograph of Barthelme Family
  Donald Barthelme was born on April 7, 1931 into an artistic family headed by architect Donald Barthelme and his wife Helen. He grew up in Houston with his sister Joan and his much younger brothers Peter, Frederick, and Steven. All four boys would become published authors, most notably fiction writer Frederick "Rick" Barthelme. Back row: Donald Barthelme, Sr., Donald Barthelme. Front row: Peter Barthelme, Frederick Barthelme, Helen Barthelme, Steven Barthelme, Joan Barthelme.
• The Singing Sigmund Freud Pin
• "Circumstance"
  "Perfect. But don't settle for this kind of perfection. Keep working for the other" --Cynthia Macdonald. In this note Macdonald encouraged a graduate student in the Creative Writing Program to continue to dig deep in his work.
• "A Working Group to Resolve Writing Blocks," fax to Aruffo Cambor
  Together with Dr. Arthur Farley of the Houston-Galveston Psychoanalytic Institute, Macdonald ran groups for people who wished to address "the inability to write when there is a need or desire to do so."
• "Chicken Tribute" draft and news clipping
  I Can't Remember included a series of poems related to chickens, this one inspired by a newspaper story about a tractor-trailer of chickens that overturned on the Long Island Expressway.
• "Departure" draft
  This poem about a mother's reluctance to see her son go off into the world was originally called "Amputation,"
• AWP Conference Program 2015 website
  At the panel discussion "Witty, Wry, (W)holes: The Legacy of Cynthia Macdonald," University of Houston Creative Writing Program alumni Elline Lipkin, Leslie Adrienne Miller, Martha Serpas, Patty Seyburn, and Mira Rosenthal discussed Macdonald's legacy as a poet and teacher.
• I Can't Remember
  Macdonald's final collection of poems included several explorations of artists, including the lovely "Mary Cassatt's Twelve Hours in the Pleasure Quarter."
• Reception at Brazos Bookstore for Alternate Means of Transport
  The Brazos Bookstore was opened by Karl Kilian in 1974 to support the growth of Houston's literary community. The store frequently held readings by distinguished local and visiting writers.
• Alternate Means of Transport
  Published in 1985, Alternate Means of Transport revealed a poet who used inventive language and imagery in the service of poems that were more humane and less sensationalistic than those found in her previous books.
• (W)holes
  Macdonald's third collection, published by Knopf, featured circus performers and freaks, described with the poet's characteristic wit and wordplay. It closed with the long poem "Burying the Babies."
• Amputations
  In a 1990 interview in the journal Artful Dodge, Macdonald described how her first collection of poetry came to be published in the Braziller Series of Poetry: "Richard Howard... was really my original mentor... He was the one who seized my Sarah Lawrence master's thesis and said, 'Well, I'm beginning a poetry series for Braziller, how would you like to be the third book?'" Amputations demonstrated her comic voice and affinity for the grotesque in poems like "A Family of Dolls' House Dolls" and "Aspects of Unicorns."
• Program for recital at Manhattan School of Music
  After earning her B.A. in English at Bennington College, Macdonald studied voice at Mannes College of Music. She pursued a career as an opera singer from 1953 to 1966.
• Artwork by Barry Moser for "The King"
  Artist and printmaker Barry Moser painted several alternative covers for Barthelme’s last novel, The King. A different image was used for the final book.
• ENGL 4354 "Writing Projects Poetry" course book
  The readings gathered in this packet for Macdonald’s students cover elements of poetry such as rhythm and form.
• Portrait of the Therapist as an Artist program
  At the Portrait of the Therapist as an Artist Symposium, Macdonald spoke on the symbolism of the month of April in various works. She also gave a benefit poetry reading for the Pittsburgh Psychoanalytic Foundation, the organization which hosted the symposium.
• Cynthia Macdonald Psychotherapy/Psychoanalysis business card
  In addition to her ongoing roles as poet and teacher, Macdonald became a practicing psychotherapist and psychoanalyst who specialized in treating writer’s block.
• Diploma for Cynthia Macdonald from the Houston-Galveston Psychoanalytic Institute
  "..what actually made me want to explore psychoanalysis theoretically and clinically were some observations I made while teaching. I became fascinated by the role repression and defense played in creating writing blocks. Repression meaning material that does not come out of the unconscious because it’s too painful, too difficult to deal with. And defense being the maneuvers you go through to prevent that material from becoming conscious.” - Cynthia Macdonald interview by Lazaro Aleman and Steven Robinson, Phosphene Publishing"
• Promotional photograph of Cynthia Macdonald for (W)holes
• Cynthia Macdonald reading a book
  Macdonald ultimately gravitated towards the life of a poet, receiving an M.A. in Writing from Sarah Lawrence College in 1970, then teaching poetry, first at Sarah Lawrence and then at Johns Hopkins.
• "1 + One," UH Literary and Visual Artists Collaborate for Exhibit, UH Horizons
  The exhibit One Plus One at the Glassell School of Art was co-curated by Donald Barthelme and Janet Landay and featured thirteen pairs of writers and artists, including Barthelme and Jim Love, Edward Hirsch and Derek Boshier, Cynthia Macdonald and James Surls, Ntozake Shange and Chuck Dugan, and Phillip Lapote and Sally Gall.