What do you think?
Rate this book
The Collected Poems
Book by Paul Blackburn
728 pages, Hardcover
First published October 1, 1984
1 person is currently reading
140 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
July 26, 2007
Blackburn has always been a source I return to again and again. The ease of his line, the music in the line, the speech-based quality of the poems always inspire me to write.
Marjorie Perloff's idiotic politically correct critique of this book pissed me off all those years ago in Parnassus, and still irks me today. The main reason I can't take that bitch seriously is that review, where she accused Paul Blackburn of not being Frank O'Hara, and therefore, rejected his work outright. Of course he's not Frank O'Hara, he's Paul Blackburn. The comparison is facetious. Blackburn wrote his poems while he translated oodles of books by Spanish writers, including Cortazer, and he worked on the troubador poets his whole life. That angle separated him from O'Hara, for one thing, and O'Hara was more involved in the art world. Their gossip was from different places. Their sexuality was different. Frank was an uptown guy, and Paul was a downtown guy. There is room for both of them on my bookshelf, they do not contradict each other, they compliment each other. Perloff also made a big deal about Blackburn's "sexist" comments, and indeed, there are such things in the poems sometimes. So what? Does Perloff take gay poets to task for lewd comments about same-gendered objectification of the erotic other? NO. Guys sometimes think those kinds of thoughts. Blackburn was honest about it. He put it in the poem.
Blackburn's poems are beautiful and challenging. Read, especially, The Well, and the Ritual series (I love the line, "the asshole enters the office and the office records it.")
One of the all-time great melodists of verse, Blackburn knows how to make the words move like a human body across the mind.
Great poet. Book superb. End of story.
Marjorie Perloff's idiotic politically correct critique of this book pissed me off all those years ago in Parnassus, and still irks me today. The main reason I can't take that bitch seriously is that review, where she accused Paul Blackburn of not being Frank O'Hara, and therefore, rejected his work outright. Of course he's not Frank O'Hara, he's Paul Blackburn. The comparison is facetious. Blackburn wrote his poems while he translated oodles of books by Spanish writers, including Cortazer, and he worked on the troubador poets his whole life. That angle separated him from O'Hara, for one thing, and O'Hara was more involved in the art world. Their gossip was from different places. Their sexuality was different. Frank was an uptown guy, and Paul was a downtown guy. There is room for both of them on my bookshelf, they do not contradict each other, they compliment each other. Perloff also made a big deal about Blackburn's "sexist" comments, and indeed, there are such things in the poems sometimes. So what? Does Perloff take gay poets to task for lewd comments about same-gendered objectification of the erotic other? NO. Guys sometimes think those kinds of thoughts. Blackburn was honest about it. He put it in the poem.
Blackburn's poems are beautiful and challenging. Read, especially, The Well, and the Ritual series (I love the line, "the asshole enters the office and the office records it.")
One of the all-time great melodists of verse, Blackburn knows how to make the words move like a human body across the mind.
Great poet. Book superb. End of story.
April 12, 2012
intimate, very fragile work. definitely in the abstract vein, but with a grand voice/ prose.
August 26, 2017
Just love Paul Blackburn's poetry - I keep this book close, read the poems whenever I can. Wish there was a biography of Blackburn - such a brave, human, generous, humorous and quietly skilful poet.
August 22, 2007
died as a relatively young poet...friends w/ folks like ted berrigan and ron padgett. somehow his "projection" reminds me of joseph ceravolo's work, but this is probably because they both died relatively young.
July 25, 2008
This is a prodigious book. It's going to take me ages to get through it. So far, it's great.
March 20, 2010
I'm very happy to have finally acquired this edition. I keep coming back to Blackburn and Creeley.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews