Onur Ayaz

Lost & Found Archival Research Fellow

Onur Ayaz is a doctoral candidate in the English program at The Graduate Center of the
City University of New York. His dissertation examines the poetics and pedagogy of
New American poet Charles Olson by tracing his life as a teacher in higher education at
institutions like Clark University, Black Mountain College, and SUNY Buffalo. Through
Lost & Found, Ayaz has visited several archives, including the Maud/Olson library, the
New York Public Library, the Poetry Collection at the University of Buffalo, and most
recently the Charles Olson Research Collection at the University of Connecticut. Ayaz’s
work illustrates the discovery of unexpected connections with Olson’s contemporaries
and students alike, such as the unexplored legacy of Paul Metcalf, the great-grandson
of Herman Melville and a friend to many Black Mountain and New American writers.
Ayaz is a lifelong resident of Brooklyn, New York, the first-born child of Turkish
immigrants and the first in his family to graduate college (Brooklyn College, 2018) and
pursue a PhD. His most recent publication includes “African American Innovation,
Invention, and Entrepreneurship,” a research guide published through the Library of
Congress Manuscript Division from his time as a Junior Fellow there.