Poetry, 1941-1968

This series contains fifty-nine poems which have been divided into two groups. The first group, composed of fifty-five poems, was sent by Karl Shapiro from Australia and New Guinea to Evalyn Katz in Baltimore and New York between 1941 and 1945. Many of the earliest poems contain handwritten corrections and changes, probably made by either Shapiro or Evalyn. These are the poems that Evalyn marketed in the United States. The second group is composed of four signed manuscripts, three of which are dated. They include poems written during Shapiro's service in the South Pacific. "V-Letter" and "Elegy for a Dead Soldier" appeared in V-Letter and Other Poems (1941); "V-Letter" is signed and dated September 1968. "Adam and Eve" was first published in Shapiro's Poems 1940-1953 (1953) and is signed and dated February 16, 1967. The "Progress of Faust" consists of "Homecoming," "Demobilization," and "The Conscientious Objector," all of which were published in Shapiro's Trial of a Poet (1947); the manuscript is dated April 13, 1968.

The poems have been arranged into the two groups described above. The group written between 1941 and 1945 has been arranged alphabetically by title or first line, and the second group of manuscripts has been arranged alphabetically by title.