This is a collection of the personal papers of American poet and Western Michigan University English professor John Warren Woods (1926-1995). After completing his BS and MA at Indiana University, he began his academic career in the English department at Western Michigan University in 1955. He retired in 1992 as a full professor. Over the course of his career he published over a dozen books of poetry.
His papers include manuscript drafts of individual poems as well as manucript drafts of his books. There is a significant amount of correspondence between Woods and various publishers, records of contracts, copyright agreements and other documents related to his publishing activities. There are also newspaper articles containing interviews with Woods or mentions of his works or public readings, a scrapbook and other documents relating to his academic career at Western Michigan University and twenty five cassette tape recordings of poets giving readings or lectures; these include recordings of Robert Bly, Robert Frost, Alan Ginsberg, W.S. Merwin, Czesław Miłosz and others.