The Collected Later Poems and Plays

by Robert Duncan, Peter Quartermain (Editor)

Profoundly original yet insistent on the derivative quality of his work, transgressive yet affirmative of tradition, Robert Duncan (1919-1988) was a generative force among American poets, and his poetry and poetics establish him as a major figure in mid- and late- 20th-century American letters.

This second volume of Robert Duncan’s collected poetry and plays presents authoritative annotated texts of both collected and uncollected work from his middle and late writing years (1958-1988), with commentaries on each of the five books from this period: The Opening of the Field, Roots and Branches, Bending the Bow, and the two volumes of Ground Work.

The biographical and critical introduction discusses Duncan as a late Romantic and postmodern American writer; his formulation of a homosexual poetics; his development of the serial poem; the notation and centrality of sound as organizing principle; his relations with such fellow poets as Robin Blaser, Charles Olson, and Jack Spicer; his indebtedness to Alfred North Whitehead; and his collaborations with the painter Jess Collins, his lifelong partner. Texts include his anti-war poems of the 1960s and 70s, his homages to Dante and other canonical poets, and his translations from the French of Gérard de Nerval, as well as the complete Structure of Rime and Passages series.
 

Genres: Poetry

928 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 2013

About the author

Robert Edward Duncan (January 7, 1919 – February 3, 1988) was an American poet associated with any number of literary traditions and schools, Duncan is often identified with the poets of the New American Poetry and Black Mountain College. Duncan saw his work as emerging especially from the tradition of Pound, Williams and Lawrence. Duncan was a key figure in the San Francisco Renaissance.

Reviews

[Jeff · Rating 5 out of 5]

Larger than any of the other three books in the California project, The Collected Later Poems and Plays claims itself to be a reader's edition. The poems are beautifully laid out across this enlarged format, and all the words seem to be there, in the right order. The five books herein collected represent Duncan's major effort in poetry, and between each of the five, the editor, Peter Quartermain, has included work previously uncollected but written in the respective periods -- a very considerable new establishing of RD text. Pace its readerliness, the edition is also, in its introductory apparatus, and especially in its (some 140 pp of ) notes, a concatenation of Duncaniana lore like the coterie has not seen since its movement into the posthumous orders. So there you go. Many miles to go, etc..

[Tim Genetti · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good not as jettisoned as you would think.

[Mills College Library]

811.54 D9123c 2014