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Home , Ed Dorn, Ed Sanders, Jack Spicer, John Wieners, Madeline Gleason

Poetics & History: Regional Poetics Spring 2005 regional poetics #1

The purpose of this course is to pursue an ambitious reading plan. We will cover quite a bit of ground through assigned readings that everyone will do, and cover more ground through the options described below. If all goes according to plan (!), in most cases, at least several students or a small group will end up reading some of the same books, in addition to all the books we read together as a class. The primary work is reading as much as possible; there won’t be papers or a final project but there will be short reports in various forms connecting the reading everyone is doing. The goal is absorption — even like this, we’re only beginning to scratch the surface of many, many writers worth reading & studying (dozens, hundreds?). We are entering a huge world, post 1945 U.S. poetry, and while we will certainly look at individual texts, our primary concern will be to continue the work of mapping and begin the work of a larger synthesis.

COMMON TEXTS

Writing histories: references

Rasula, Jed; The Wax Museum: Reality Effects 1940-1990 (National Council of Teachers of English, 1996) (acute, obsessive, encyclopedic, almost the ultimate guide to most of the ins & outs)

Poetics

Olson, Charles; Collected Prose (University of California, 1997) (has most of what is necessary in Olson’s prose, can be supplemented if need be)

Spicer, Jack; The House That Jack Built: The Collected Lectures of (University Press of New England, 1998) (in lieu of reincarnation, the only accessible Spicer until the 4 volume Wesleyan)

Waldman, Anne & Lisa Birman; Civil Disobediences: Poetics & Politics in Action (Coffee House, 2004) (most recent permutation of the great Talking Poetics from Naropa Institute series)

Process

Wieners, John; The Journal of Is To Be Called 707 Scott Street For Billie Holiday (Sun & Moon, 1996) [THIS MAY BE OP; if so, will be included in sourcebook/disk] (journal from the period when Wieners wrote the great Hotel Wentley Poems)

Poets

Niedecker, Lorine; Collected Works (University of California, 2002) (finally, a collected works, 32 years after her death)

Olson, Charles; The Maximus Poems (University of California, 1983) (huge, ambitious, could serve as the basis for a university — let’s attempt, however, to just read it the way it was read when it was coming out, as the news, from Gloucester)

Ehrhart, W.D., editor; Carrying the Darkness: Poetry of the Vietnam War (Texas Tech, 1989) (a poetics of extreme & urgent experience, a litmus test for many of our other readings) More / a few choices Choose 2 (or more!) of the following:

Baraka, Amiri; Transbluesency: Selected Poems, 1961-1995 (Marsilio, 1995) (a great selection, including the hard to find Dead Lecturer)[may be OP, check on-line]

Coleman, Wanda; Mercurochrome: New Poems (Black Sparrow, 2001) (great Los Angeles who moves in & out of diverse forms & styles) di Prima, Diane; Dinners & Nightmares (Last Gasp, 1998) (reprint of this early di Prima book, with some additional material)

Dorn, Edward; Gunslinger (Duke University, 1989) (“I met in Mesilla The Cautious Gunslinger of impeccable personal smoothness” ESSENTIAL)

Duncan, Robert; The Opening of the Field (, 1960) ______, Bending the Bow (New Directions, 1968) ______, Ground Work: Before the War (New Directions, 1984) (mid to late sequence of Duncan’s most important work )

Henderson, David; Neo-California (North Atlantic, 1998) (original member of the Umbra Group, biographer of Jimi Hendrix, exquisite poet)

Howe, Susan; The Europe of Trusts (New Directions, 1990) (includes three important OP books from the 1980s)

Jonas, Stephen; Selected Poems (Talisman, 1994) (1956: mysterious Jonas, John Wieners, Joe Dunn, Jack Spicer & all living within a few blocks of each other on the back of Beacon Hill in …)

Kaufman, Bob; Cranial Guitar (Coffee House, 1966) (surrealist, jazz poet, Kaufman took a vow of silence after the Kennedy assassination that lasted 10 years; if you read him, also look for Solitudes Crowded with Loneliness; New Directions, 1965)

Kim, Myung Mi; Commons (University of California, 2002) (fourth collection by this inheritor & innovator of & in many of our most vital forms)

Kyger, Joanne; As Ever: Selected Poems (Penguin, 2002) (a unique poet whose language & form spans some the most important points of close to the past 50 years, from Spicer, Duncan, Wieners & the Beats to Language poetry)

Notley, Alice; The Descent of Alette (Penguin, 1992) ______, Disobedience (Penguin, 2001) (ceaseless interpreter of life & experience, these are two of Notley’s major poems)

Nowak, Mark; Shut Up Shut Down (Coffee House, 2004) (“brand-new” & long-awaited, THE poem on present day deindustrialization)

Waldman, Anne; Iovis, Books I & II (Coffee House, 1993/1997) (an epic for our times, packed with personal, political & spiritual energy)

Wieners, John; Selected Poems 1958-1984 (Black Sparrow, 1986) (includes Hotel Wentley Poems, Ace of Pentacles, Asylum Poems — breathtaking)

Whalen, Philip; Overtime: Selected Poems (Penguin, 1999) (a great selection by one & only Whalen; if you want to pursue Whalen, try looking on-line for an OP copy of On Bear’s Head, 1969, which has the poems as they originally appeared in books) As crazy as this list already is, there will also be a xeroxed or CD sourcebook/disk that may include , Mei-Mei Bersenbrugge, Kay Boyle, Gwendolyn Brooks, ; Diane di Prima, , George Economou, Vincent Ferrini, Julia Fields, , David Henderson, , Fanny Howe, Langston Hughes, Bob Kaufman, , Sister Mary Norbert Korte, d.a. levy, Duncan McNaughton, Jackson MacLow, Bernadette Mayer, Laura Moriarty, , Ishmael Reed, , Jack Spicer, Melvin Tolson, Diane Wakoski, Hannah Weiner, et al, with selections from The Poetics of the New American Poetry (1973); Talking Poetics at the Naropa Institute, Vols. 1 & 2 (1978/79), interviews & other OP sources.

A number of the books on the list (David Henderson’s biography of Jimi Hendrix, ’s On Bear’s Head, or the Naropa volumes above, are OP; they can usually be found on- line at either Amazon or MXB bookfinder (www.bookfinder.com); all the COMMON TEXTS will be available through Labyrinth & about half a dozen or so each of some of the “choice” books — there are too many options to order everything so you’ll have to fend for yourselves. An attempt will be made to put as much relevant stuff as possible on reserve in our library. If you want to read poets not here (& there are many), let me know & we’ll see what can be done. Obvious omissions: Ginsberg (you must have read him by now!) Many, many, many more…

An Annotated Guide

ONE: Writing histories: REFERENCES

(these books are meant to serve as a program/scorecard, to see who is where/when & according to whom)

Everyone should choose 2 of the following (arrangement is somewhat chronological, regional, thematic — feel free to either concentrate or spread out):

Du Plessis, Rachel Blau; Genders, Races & Religious Cultures in Modern American Poetry 1908-1934 (Cambridge University, 2001) (concentrates on an earlier era but looks at writers that serve as a basis for what comes after: Cullen, Eliot, H.D. Hughes, Moore, Pound, Stein, Stevens, Williams, et al)

Thomas, Lorenzo; Extraordinary Measures: Afrocentric Modernism and Twentieth-Century American Poetry (University of Alabama, 2000) (overlaps with du Plessis but ranges further, from Fenton Johnson and William Stanley Braithwaite to Margaret Walker, Tolson, Baraka, Umbra & Harryette Mullen)

Smith, Richard Candida; Utopia & Dissent: Art, Poetry & Politics in California (University of California, 1995) (great overview of the visual arts & writing scenes in California from 1925 to 1975, stressing the national impact of the region; particularly strong on )

Solnit, Rebecca; Secret Exhibition: Six California Artists of the Cold War Era (City Lights, 1990) (LA & SF counterculture through artists , Bruce Conner, Jess, Jay DeFeo)

Davidson, Michael; Renaissance: Poetics & Community at Mid-Century (Cambridge University, 1991) (still the best introduction to & overview of the indispensable SF renaissance)

Meltzer, David; San Francisco Beat: Talking with the Poets (City Lights, 2001) (more SF: great interviews with most of the major figures — di Prima, Ferlinghetti. Kyger, McClure, Rexroth, Snyder, Welch, Whalen, et al) Grace, Nancy M., & Ronna C. Johnson; Breaking the Rule of Cool: Interviewing & Reading Women Beat Writers (University Press of Mississippi, 2004) (hot off the press, this book fills in many gaps, from di Prima to Hettie Jones, Joyce Johnson & Anne Waldman)

Charters, Ann; Beat Down to Your Soul: What Was the (Penguin, 2001) (pioneering literary historian & scholar Ann Charters provides sourcebook & context)

Kane, Daniel; All Poets Welcome: The Poetry Scene in the 1960s (University of California, 2003) (the “New Americans,” from Umbra & St. Marks to the Nuyorican; excellent social, political & literary history includes CD & photos!)

Gotera, Vince; Radical Visions: Poetry By Vietnam Veterans (University of Georgia, 1995) (the first & still most comprehensive book on poetry by U.S. vets of the war in Vietnam)

Damon, Maria; The Dark End of the Street: Margins in American Vanguard Poetry (University of Minnesota, 1993) (wide ranging & idiosyncratic, from Bob Kaufman, Spicer & Duncan to Stein)

Melhem, D.H.; Heroism in the New Black Poetry: Introductions & Interviews (University Press of Kentucky, 1990) (excellent intro via interviews: Baraka, Brooks, Cortez, Madhubuti, Randall & Sanchez)

Nielsen, Aldon Lynn; Black Chant: Languages of African-American Postmodernism (Cambridge University, 1997) (encyclopedic in scope, Nielsen maps & interprets important African-American poets who have generally been ignored in studies of U.S. postmodernism)

Nielsen, Aldon Lynn; Integral Music: Languages of African American Innovation (University of Alabama, 2004 (Nielsen’s latest focuses on Russell Atkins, Steve Jonas, Baraka, Bob Kaufman & — his discussion of the Olson / Baraka relationship is illuminating)

Vickery, Ann; Leaving Lines of Gender: A Feminist Genealogy of Language Writing (Wesleyan University Press, 2000) (the women around, behind & in front of the L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E guys)

TWO: poets investigate

Choose 1 (or more!) of the following:

Rukeyser, Muriel; Willard Gibbs (Oxbow Press, 1988 reprint of 1941 edition) (bio of chemist Willard Gibbs, from the Amistad mutiny in 1839 to the consolidation of the chemical industry in Germany before World War II; one of a kind)

Welch, Lew; How I Read Gertrude Stein (Grey Fox, 1996) (Welch’s MA thesis at Reed College from 1950 probably remains the best intro to Stein)

Duncan, Robert; The H.D. Book (will be on your disk or available as a large PDF file at http://www.ccca.ca/history/ozz/english/books/ (Duncan’s ongoing investigations in poetics, myth, autobiography, and everything else, published in small magazines from 1966 until 1983)

Baraka, Amiri; Blues People: Negro Music in White America (Perennial, 1999) (this 1963 book places jazz & blues within a dense social & political history) Metcalf, Paul; Genoa: A Telling of Wonders (Jargon Society, 1965/1973) (following in the line of Call Me Ishmael, Melville’s great grandson Paul Metcalf takes the use of sources and the creation of narrative to places they haven’t been before)

Henderson, David; ‘Scuse Me While I Kiss the Sky: The Life of Jimi Hendrix (Bantam, 1981) (pioneering work of rock bio as social history & spiritual journey by poet Henderson)

Howe, Susan; My Emily Dickinson (North Atlantic, 1985) (groundbreaking investigation of Dickinson’s life & language)

Mackey, Nathaniel; Beduin Hornbook (Callaloo, 1986) (encyclopedic musical knowledge & poetics in an epistolary narrative)

Scott, Peter Dale; Deep Politics & the Death of JFK (University of California, 1993) (poet & former diplomat, Peter Dale Scott places the Kennedy assassination in the context of buried realms of U.S. politics — more important than ever)

Sanders, Ed; The Family (Thunder’s Mouth, 2002) (definitive look at the late 60s & 70s, through the , by poet & Fug Sanders)

Berry, Wendell; The Unsettling of America: Culture & Agriculture (Sierra Club, 1997) (poet & farmer Berry in the context of ecological, economic, spiritual & poetic crisis)

THREE: time & place / memoirs

Choose 1 (or more!) of the following:

Dahlberg, Edward; Because I Was Flesh (New Directions, 1967) (one of the greatest writers of American English prose)

Di Prima, Diane; Recollections of My Life as a Woman (Penguin, 2001) (the long journey from Italian American Brooklyn to the of the 50s)

Ehrhart, W.D., Vietnam-Perkasie: A Combat Marine Memoir (University of Massachusetts, 1995) ______; Passing Time: Memoir of a Vietnam Veteran Against the War (University of Massachusetts, 1995) (pioneer veteran poet, essayist & anthologizer in two essential memoirs)

Grogan, Emmett; Ringolevio (Rebel, 1992) (one of the original Diggers traces life from Brooklyn to the Haight in a partially self-made myth that gets as close to anything as a chronicle of the times)

Jackson, George; Soledad Brother: The Prison Letters (Bantam, 2000, reprint) (“the naked truth revealed” as Jean Genet put it in his introduction)

Johnson, Joyce; Minor Characters (Penguin, 1999) ______, with ; Door Wide Open: A Beat Love Affair in Letters, 1957-1958 (Penguin, 2000) (Johnson’s groundbreaking memoir, and correspondence with Jack Kerouac)

Kyger, Joanne; Strange Big Moon: The Japan & India Journals, 1960-1964 (, 2000) (recently married to , Kyger chronicles life abroad) Ortiz, Roxanne Dunbar-; Outlaw Woman: A Memoir of the War Years, 1960-1975 (City Lights, 2001) (Native American/Okie Dunbar-Ortiz’s “unoffical” & essential history of many movements)

Sanders, Ed; Tales of Glory (Thunder’s Mouth, 2004) (1957-1969, the classic chronicle in all its glory)

Thompson, Hunter S.; Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas (Vintage, 1971) (the 60s end, the 70s begin — definitive)

EXTRA-CURRICULAR: alternative politics: a primer

Brotherston, Gordon, Book of the Fourth World (Cambridge University, 1992)

Churchill, Ward, A Little Matter of Genocide: Holocaust & Denial in the Americas, 1492 to the Present (San Francisco: City Lights, 1998)

Churchill, Ward, and Jim Vander Wall; The COINTELPRO Papers: Documents from the FBI’s Secret Wars Against Dissent in the United States (South End Press, 2002)

______, Agents of Repression: The FBI’s Secret War Against the Black Panther Party and the American Indian Movement (South End Press, 2002)

Cockburn, Alexander, Jeffrey St. Clair, Whiteout: The CIA, Drugs & the Press (Verso, 1998)

DiEugenio, James, & Lisa Pease; The Assassinations: Probe Magazine on JFK, MLK, RFK and Malcolm X (Feral House, 2003)

Lee, Martin A., & Bruce Shlain; Acid Dreams: The Complete Social History of LSD: The CIA, The Sixties, And Beyond (Grove Press, 1992)

McCoy, Alfred W., The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade (Lawrence Hill Books, 2003)

Nicosia, Gerald, Home to War: A History of the Vietnam Veterans’ Movement (Three Rivers, 2001).

Ruppert, Michael C.; Crossing the Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil (New Society Publishers, 2004)

Russell, Dan; Drug War: Covert Money, Power & Policy (Kalyx, 2000)

Shapiro, H.R.; The Bureaucratic State (Samizdat, 1975;OP, hard to find, for the hard-core) ______, The Total State [also OP, harder to find; for the even harder-core!]

Simpson, Christopher; Blowback: America’s Recruitment of Nazis and Its Effects on the Cold War (Collier Books, 1988)

Valentine, Douglas; The Phoenix Program (Avon Books, 1990) ______, The Strength of the Wolf: The Secret History of America’s War on Drugs (Verso, 2004)