Restrictions to Access

No restrictions. Additions are unprocessed, but usable.

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Copyright Notice

Copyright is retained by the authors of items in these papers, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law.

Preferred Citation

[Identification of item], in the Michael Rigsby Revere Papers #4166, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Provenance

Gift of Michael Rigsby Revere, 1979, 1982, April 1995 (Acc. 95045), July 1996 (Acc. 96111), and March 2002 (Acc. 99188).

Sensitive Materials Statement

Manuscript collections and archival records may contain materials with sensitive or confidential information that is protected under federal or state right to privacy laws and regulations, the North Carolina Public Records Act (N.C.G.S. § 132 1 et seq.), and Article 7 of the North Carolina State Personnel Act (Privacy of State Employee Personnel Records, N.C.G.S. § 126-22 et seq.). Researchers are advised that the disclosure of certain information pertaining to identifiable living individuals represented in this collection without the consent of those individuals may have legal ramifications (e.g., a cause of action under common law for invasion of privacy may arise if facts concerning an individual's private life are published that would be deemed highly offensive to a reasonable person) for which the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill assumes no responsibility.

This collection was rehoused under the sponsorship of a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Office of Preservation, Washington, D.C., 1990-1992.

The following terms from Library of Congress Subject Headings suggest topics, persons, geography, etc. interspersed through the entire collection; the terms do not usually represent discrete and easily identifiable portions of the collection--such as folders or items.

Clicking on a subject heading below will take you into the University Library's online catalog.

• North Carolina--Intellectual life--20th century.
• Poets, American--North Carolina--History--20th century.
• Revere, Michael Rigsby, 1951- .

Michael Rigsby Revere, formerly Michael Darrell Rigsby, was born in 1951. Growing up in a military family, he lived in six states and Europe during the first twelve years of his life. He dropped out of high school and joined the army at seventeen to avoid being sent to jail. Six months later he was discharged for "unsuppressible nomadic tendencies." Between 1969 and 1976 Revere hitch-hiked across the U.S. 24 times.

As of 1982, Revere had been married three times. His alcoholism ended his first marriage. With his second wife, Theresa, he lived in Chapel Hill, N.C., and worked as a cook. During this time he was publishing a fair number of poems in local journals. His book, Hospital Poems, was written during a stay in the mental health ward of the University of North Carolina hospital, where he was being treated for trauma experienced after almost losing his life in a fire in 1975. It was in Chapel Hill in the mid-1970s that he developed a reputation as a "street poet."

While living in North Carolina, Revere conducted writing workshops at the North Carolina Prison for Women, the Federal Correctional Institute, the Carrboro Arts School, and the Wildflower Kitchen. The Winston-Salem, Raleigh, Durham, and Roxboro newspapers have all featured or reviewed his work.

Divorced from Theresa, Revere left North Carolina and travelled west, to Washington and Oregon. There he married for the third time to Judy Clouse. The couple moved to Montana in 1980. They had two children, Sadie (b. 1980) and Andrew (b. 1982). Revere developed an interest in Christianity that is reflected in his poetry. One of his published works represented in the collection is a republication of "Hospital Roommates" in the Christian publication, Alive Now.

In 1984, Revere and his family moved to Eugene, Ore., where they lived until 1992. In 1992, they moved to Columbia, S.C. After ten months there, they moved to Cullowhee, N.C. There Revere attended Southwestern Community College.

The Michael Rigsby Revere collection is divided into four series. Series 1 contains correspondence. In the original deposit, most of the letters are from Revere's mother, Margaret Pope. The additions contain correspondence with many other people. Series 2 contains Revere's writings, published and unpublished. Series 3 contains reviews of Revere's work. Series 4 contains other papers, including an audio tape of an interview with Revere, newspaper articles about him, publicity for his poetry readings and musical performances, financial and legal papers, and items documenting other activities.

Items separated include photographs (P-4166/1), videotapes (VT-4166/1-3), and a audiocassette tape (C-4166/1).