NEWSLETTER #7: Duncan, Olson, Levertov, Black Mountain College
Wednesday, September 7, 2022
Three Sentences to Imitate and Study
I.
Often I Am Permitted to Return to a Meadow
as if it were a scene made-up by the mind,
that is not mine, but is a made place,
that is mine, it is so near to the heart,
an eternal pasture folded in all thought
so that there is a hall therein
that is a made place, created by light
wherefrom the shadows that are forms fall.
- Robert Duncan, “Often I Am Permitted to Return to a Meadow”
II.
As the dead prey upon us, / they are the dead in ourselves, / awake, my sleeping ones, I cry out to you, / disentangle the nets of being!
- Charles Olson, “As the Dead Prey Upon Us”
III.
Two girls discover / the secret of life / in a sudden line of / poetry.
- Denise Levertov, “The Secret”
Two Quotes by Black Mountain College Poets
I.
“What never changes is your desire to change”
- Charles Olson
II.
“What a great thing! To be a writer! Words are something you can carry in your head. You can really 'travel light.’”
- Robert Creeley
This Week’s Writing Prompt/Tip
When I was in graduate school I studied a lot of modern and post-modern poetry. Sure, most of it was over my head, but there were a select few that really stood out to me: Robert Duncan, Robert Creeley, Charles Olson, Denise Levertov. Their poems were challenging, yet accessible; ordinary yet philosophical; engaging yet distant. A few weeks ago I came across this great article in the New York Times about the lasting legacy of Black Mountain College. It was a one-of-kind integrated and interdisciplinary arts college that I believe is a model that should be studied and applied today.