The Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Yale University has acquired Cave Canem Foundation Records, 1996 to 2012, according to a statement released by Cave Canem’s cofounders, Toi Derricotte and Cornelius Eady.

The records, which will be stored in The James Weldon Johnson Memorial Collection of African American Arts and Letters, include correspondence and operational materials that document both organizational work on behalf of African American arts and culture, and completed poetry publications.

The Library’s Curator of Poetry, Nancy Kuhl, calls the collection “unprecedented.” “This incomparable collection of materials will serve as an important and prominent resource for innovative research and scholarship in African American literature and culture of the late twentieth century and beyond,” she said. “The Beinecke Library welcomes the opportunity to both serve the Cave Canem community as steward and caretaker of its archival record, and to collaborate as partners in preserving and promoting the archive for future poets, readers, students, and scholars.”

Derricotte and Eady, celebrated most recently for their respective poetry collections, The Undertaker’s Daughter (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2011) and Hardheaded Weather (G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 2008), founded Cave Canem, a nonprofit organization headquartered in Brooklyn, New York, in 1996. Read more about their public programs, which include writing retreats, book prizes, and more.