Robert Duncan, the Ambassador from Venus

by Jarnot, Lisa; Davidson, Michael

• ISBN13: 9780520234161
• ISBN10: 0520234162
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2012-08-27
• Publisher: Univ of California Pr

Summary

This definitive biography chronicles the life and times of the poet Robert Duncan (1919-1988), who lived and wrote at the forefront of the literary, aesthetic, social, and political movements of his time. Duncan, associated with the Black Mountain School and the San Francisco Renaissance, was, and remains, a revered international figure--both for his fascinating life and his powerful, incantatory poetry. He became the leading practitioner of nontraditional open-form verse, exemplified in his masterwork The Opening of the Field.Lisa Jarnot takes us from Duncan's birth in Oakland, California, through his childhood in an eccentrically Theosophist household, to his life in San Francisco as an openly gay man who became an inspirational figure for the many poets and painters who gathered around him. Jarnot's vivid descriptions of life on the west coast and in New York City feature luminaries such as Henry Miller, Anaïs Nin, Tennessee Williams, James Baldwin, Paul Goodman, Michael McClure, H.D., William Carlos Williams, Denise Levertov, Robert Creeley, and Charles Olson. Weaving together quotations from Duncan's notebooks and interviews with those who knew him, this richly detailed work gives a brilliant account of the extraordinary life and art of one of America's great postwar poets.

Table of Contents

Foreword	p. xiii
Preface	p. xxi
Acknowledgments	p. xxiii
Textual Notes	p. xxvii
Childhood's Retreat
The Antediluvian World	p. 3
Native Son of the Golden West	p. 6
The Architecture	p. 13
A Part in the Fabulous	p. 21
The Wasteland	p. 26
The Fathering Dream	p. 34
Toward the Shaman
The Little Freshman Yes	p. 43
A Company of Women	p. 47
The Dance	p. 53
From Romance to Ritual	p. 61
Queen of the Whores	p. 69
Enlisted	p. 77
Marriage	p. 82
Divorce	p. 88
The Enamord Mage
The End of the War	p. 95
The Round Table	p. 101
The First Poetry Festival	p. 105
The Venice Poem	p. 109
Indian Tales	p. 115
The Song of the Borderguard	p. 118
The Way to Shadow Garden	p. 124
The Workshop	p. 131
Mallorca	p. 135
Caesar's Gate	p. 141
The Opening of the Field
The Meadow	p. 149
New York Interlude	p. 155
The San Francisco Scene	p. 160
Olson, Whitehead, and the Magic Workshop	p. 165
The Maidens	p. 171
Elfmere	p. 175
Night Scenes	p. 180
H.D.	p. 185
Go East	p. 192
Apprehensions	p. 197
The Nasty Aesthetician
The Will	p. 203
The Playhouse	p. 209
The Political Machine	p. 214
Knight Errant	p. 221
The Vancouver Conference	p. 225
Bending the Bow	p. 229
A Night Song	p. 234
Anger	p. 239
The Berkeley Conference	p. 244
The Sixties	p. 249
Domestic Scenes
The Household	p. 261
The Summer of Love	p. 266
Days of Rage	p. 274
Ground-Work	p. 280
Helter Skelter	p. 285
Santa Cruz Propositions	p. 290
The Torn Cloth	p. 296
Despair in Being Tedious	p. 303
The Cult of the Gods	p. 310
Elm Park Road	p. 314
Riverside	p. 320
The Heart of Rime	p. 327
Troubadour
An Alternate Life	p. 339
Cambridge	p. 346
The Avant-Garde	p. 351
Adam, Eve, and Jahweh	p. 355
San Francisco s Burning	p. 361
At Sea	p. 365
The Cherubim	p. 370
Alaska	p. 377
Enthralled	p. 383
The Master of Rime
New College	p. 389
Five Songs	p. 394
A Paris Visit	p. 399
Bard	p. 404
The Baptism of the Blood	p. 410
Hekatombe	p. 415
The Year of Duncan	p. 422
The Circulation of the Blood	p. 429
In the Dark	p. 432
Notes	p. 435
Works Cited	p. 503
Credits	p. 511
Index	p. 513
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