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Michael Lally Papers

Call Number

MSS.361

Dates

1930-ongoing, inclusive
; 1975-2000, bulk

Creator

Lally, Michael
Granary Books (Firm) (Role: Seller)
Lally, Michael (Role: Donor)

Extent

55 Linear Feet
in 88 manuscript boxes, 1 half manuscript box, 3 flat boxes, 2 custom flat boxes, 4 oversize flat boxes, 2 record cartons, and 3 flat-file folders

Extent

10 Gigabytes
in 94 computer files

Extent

85 audiocassettes

Extent

11 DAT

Extent

9 U-matic

Extent

47 VHS

Extent

1 Video8

Extent

1 Betacam

Extent

1 websites
in 1 archived website

Language of Materials

Materials are in English.

Abstract

The Michael Lally Papers represent and document the life and work of New Jersey-born poet, screenwriter, small press publisher, and actor Michael Lally. The collection includes correspondence, screenplays, manuscripts, poems, drafts of articles, publicity, analog and digital audiovisual recordings of poetry readings and acting work samples, digital photographs, acting scripts, journals, calendars, scrapbooks, clippings, books, small press publications, address books, and posters, all dating from the 1950s to 2012, with the bulk of the material from the 1970s to the 2000s. An archived version of Lally's blog, http://lallysalley.blogspot.com/ which contains Lally's reviews and comments on movies, television shows, literature can also be found in this collection.

Biographical Note

Michael Lally (1942- ) was born and raised in New Jersey. He joined the Air Force in 1962 and after four years left the service. Through the G.I. Bill he received his undergraduate and graduate degrees from the University of Iowa. In 1969, he moved to Washington, D.C. to teach at Trinity College. While in D.C. he became involved in the local poetry scene, where he established the Mass Transit poetry reading series which was considered an important incubator for Language Poetry, and launched a poetry publishing collective, Some of Us Press (SOUP) with wife Lee Lally, Ed Cox, and Tina Darragh. SOUP published Lally's book, The South Orange Sonnets, in 1972. In 1975 Lally separated from his first wife, the poet Lee Lally, and moved to New York, where he wrote poetry; founded a small publishing company, O Press; and also edited the anthology None of the Above: New Poets of the USA.

In 1982 Lally moved to Los Angeles to pursue opportunities in film and television as a writer and actor. He appeared in numerous movies, television episodes, and plays including Basic Instinct, White Fang, Father Dowling Mysteries, and Deadwood. In addition to writing his own original screenplays and plays, Lally was a script doctor in which he contributed to existing screenplays. During his time in Los Angeles, Lally co-founded the Poetry in Motion series (1988–1996), which received media attention for its mix of Hollywood celebrities and poets. While living in California Lally also helped found and edit the original Venice magazine.

Lally has published over 27 books of poetry and memoirs. His awards include the 92nd St. Y Poetry Center's Discovery Award for The South Orange Sonnets; numerous National Endowment for the Arts grants; and the 2000 American Book Award for It's Not Nostalgia. In 2006, Lally started the blog "Lally's Alley" (http://lallysalley.blogspot.com/) in which, as of 2019, he continues to write daily reflections on his personal life, movies, politics, and poetry. As of 2019, he is living and working in New Jersey.

Arrangement

The papers are arranged in three series, all of which have been further separated into subseries. The series and subseries arrangement of the papers is as follows:

Series I. Writings, Publishing, and Related Projects
Subseries I.A. Work Files
Subseries I.B. Publications
Subseries I.C. Readings and Events
Subseries I.D. Literary Correspondence
Subseries I.E. Publishing Correspondence

Series II. Screenwriting, Plays, and Acting
Subseries II.A. Screenplays, Plays, and Related
Subseries II.B. Acting and Voice Over Work
Subseries II.C. Correspondence

Series III. Personal
Subseries III.A. General
Subseries III.B. Correspondence

Scope and Contents

The Michael Lally Papers contains material on both Lally's professional and personal life. This material includes a significant collection of correspondence specifically related to Lally's involvement with the L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poets during their formative years, with small publishers, and with people in the poetry communities in Iowa City, Washington, D.C., and New York City during the 1970s through the 2000s. Lally's writing files include his manuscripts and drafts for poetry books and articles, as well as working files on his publishing companies, O Press and Some of Us Press (SOUP). A mix of paper and electronic files relate to his poetry readings through posters, publicity, and images from events. Small press publications and alternative journals in this collection contain many of Lally's writings, dating from the late 1960s through the 1990s, reflecting the output of poetry and literary communities during this time. Acting scripts, movie and play posters, publicity, and analog and digital audiovisual material represent Lally's work as an actor and screenwriter in Los Angeles during the 1980s through the 2000s. Personal journals, scrapbooks, calendars, address books, school yearbooks and papers, digital photographs, and correspondence with family and friends date from the 1950s to the 2000s.
An archived version of Lally's blog, http://lallysalley.blogspot.com/ where, as of 2019, he writes daily reflections on matters ranging from his personal life, movies, and politics to poetry. The blog was first captured in June 2019.

Conditions Governing Access

Materials are open without restrictions with the exception of Acting Contracts files located in Series II.B., Box 100.

Conditions Governing Use

This collection is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use materials in the collection in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).

Preferred Citation

Identification of item, date; Michael Lally Papers; MSS 361; box number; folder number, or electronic record identifier; The Fales Library & Special Collections, New York University.

To cite the archived website in this collection: Identification of item, date; Michael Lally Papers; MSS 361; Wayback URL; The Fales Library & Special Collections, New York University.

Location of Materials

Some materials are stored offsite and advance notice is required for use. Please request materials at least two business days prior to your research visit to coordinate access.

Immediate Source of Acquisition

Purchased from Granary Books, Inc., 2012. The accession number associate with this purchase is 2012.361.

In 2019, http://lallysalley.blogspot.com/ was added to the web archive through the use of Archive-it. Archive-It uses web crawling technology to capture websites at a scheduled time and displays only an archived copy, from the resulting WARC file, of the website. The accession number associated with this website is 2019.071.

Custodial History

In 2012, the material was collected by Granary Books during two visits to Michael Lally's home in Maplewood, New Jersey. Much of the material had been preliminarily sorted and organized by Michael Lally. The collection was transported to Granary Books in New York City where portions were refoldered and rearranged.

In circa 2012-2013, the material was purchased by the Fales Library & Special Collections and transferred to NYU.

Audiovisual Access Policies and Procedures

Audiovisual materials have not been preserved and may not be available to researchers. Materials not yet digitized will need to have access copies made before they can be used. To request an access copy, or if you are unsure if an item has been digitized, please contact fales.library@nyu.edu with the collection name, collection number, and a description of the item(s) requested. A staff member will respond to you with further information.

Electronic Records Policies and Procedures

Advance notice is required for the use of computer records. Original physical digital media is restricted.

An access terminal for born-digital materials in the collection is available by appointment for reading room viewing and listening only. Researchers may view an item's original container and/or carrier, but the physical carriers themselves are not available for use because of preservation concerns.

Appraisal

Eight computer discs were deaccessioned after forensic imaging and analysis determined items contained no usable data or were duplicate material.

Movie titles existing in NYU's holdings were removed from the collection including Drugstore Cowboy, Ramona, Pump Up the Volume, White Fang, Basic Instinct, The Rapture, and Cool World.

A duplicate audiocassette for the JazzSpeak album was deaccessioned, while the CD copy was retained.

Publications and books that existed already in NYU's holdings. Duplicates of publications, books, and other print material were removed from the collection.

Take Down Policy

Archived websites are made accessible for purposes of education and research. NYU Libraries have given attribution to rights holders when possible; however, due to the nature of archival collections, we are not always able to identify this information.

If you hold the rights to materials in our archived websites that are unattributed, please let us know so that we may maintain accurate information about these materials.

If you are a rights holder and are concerned that you have found material on this website for which you have not granted permission (or is not covered by a copyright exception under US copyright laws), you may request the removal of the material from our site by submitting a notice, with the elements described below, to fales.library@nyu.edu

Please include the following in your notice: Identification of the material that you believe to be infringing and information sufficient to permit us to locate the material; your contact information, such as an address, telephone number, and email address; a statement that you are the owner, or authorized to act on behalf of the owner, of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed and that you have a good-faith belief that use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law; a statement that the information in the notification is accurate and made under penalty of perjury; and your physical or electronic signature. Upon receiving a notice that includes the details listed above, we will remove the allegedly infringing material from public view while we assess the issues identified in your notice.

Separated Materials

Two DVDs were transferred to Avery Fisher in July 2019: TV Show: Big Apple (Lally acted in) and Short Film: Being Born

Collection processed by

Stacey Flatt

About this Guide

This finding aid was produced using ArchivesSpace on 2024-02-06 14:24:29 -0500.
Using Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Language: Finding aid written in English

Processing Information

In 2012, the material was collected during two visits from Michael Lally's home in Maplewood, New Jersey. Much of the material had been preliminarily sorted and organized by Michael Lally. The collection was transported to Granary Books in New York City where it was processed and a detailed inventory was created. Appoximately 80% of the physical material was re-foldered at that time, while maintaining most of Lally's original arrangement. The exception was the correspondence, which was interfiled, notating a code letter on each folder to identify Lally's original categories. These code letters identify correspondence received while he was at a particular location or friends he first met there. The following are the codes assigned to Lally's designations and notated on each folder: (D) Washington, D.C. letters and people; (I) Iowa letters and people; (L) L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poets; (LA) Los Angeles, Hollywood, and California; and (N) New York City.

In circa 2012-2013, the material was purchased by the Fales Library & Special Collections and transferred to NYU. In 2019 a processing archivist performed a survey, using the seller inventory and determined the physical arrangement of the collect would largely remain as it was received from the seller, but arranged into three series, rather than the Granary Books' original six.

Material was kept in their existing folders when possible, maintaining their original titles, while any loose material, specifically the publications, were foldered and assigned labels created by the processing archivist. Some overstuffed folders were separated out into multiple folders. Any oversize material was unrolled and placed in appropriately-sized folders in boxes or flat-file drawers.

Born-digital material was inventoried, labeled, and imaged. Discs were processed using Forensic Toolkit, and video and audio were imaged and uploaded to permanent storage. A quarter of the discs were deaccessioned due to duplication, or simply too corrupted to open. New York University Libraries follow professional standards and best practices when imaging, ingesting, and processing born-digital material in order to maintain the integrity and authenticity of the content.

Sound and video recordings were grouped and stored by format and described to the box level. Commercially produced audiovisual material was removed from the collection and if it was found to exist in the NYU holdings, it was deaccessioned. Those items not in NYU's holdings were transferred to the Avery Fisher Center for Music and Media.

In 2019, an entry for the archived website was added to the finding aid in Series III.A. In 2022 a flat-file folder containing two poems dedicated to Lally was returned from the Preservation Lab after treatment and added as an instance to an existing title in Subseries III.B.

Repository

Fales Library and Special Collections
Fales Library and Special Collections
Elmer Holmes Bobst Library
70 Washington Square South
2nd Floor
New York, NY 10012