The Black Mountain poets, sometimes called projectivist poets, were a group of mid-20th-century

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

''avant-garde'' or

postmodern Postmodernism is an intellectual stance or mode of discourseNuyen, A.T., 1992. The Role of Rhetorical Devices in Postmodernist Discourse. Philosophy & Rhetoric, pp.183–194. characterized by skepticism toward the " grand narratives" of moderni ...

poets centered on Black Mountain College in North Carolina.

Background

Although it lasted only twenty-three years (1933–1956) and enrolled fewer than 1,200 students, Black Mountain College was one of the most fabled experimental institutions in art education and practice. It launched a remarkable number of the artists who spearheaded the avant-garde in the America of the 1960s. It boasted an extraordinary curriculum in the visual,

literary Literature is any collection of Writing, written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially prose fiction, drama, and poetry. In recent centuries, the definition has expanded to ...

, and

performing arts The performing arts are arts such as music, dance, and drama which are performed for an audience. They are different from the visual arts, which are the use of paint, canvas or various materials to create physical or static art objects. Perform ...

as evidenced by some of the artists and teachers listed below. Among the literature teachers and students were

Robert Creeley Robert White Creeley (May 21, 1926 – March 30, 2005) was an American poet and author of more than sixty books. He is usually associated with the Black Mountain poets, though his verse aesthetic diverged from that school. He was close with Char ...

Fielding Dawson Fielding Dawson (August 2, 1930 – January 5, 2002, aged 71) was a Beat-era author of short stories and novels, and a student at Black Mountain College. He was also a painter and collagist whose works were seen in several books of poetry and ...

, Ed Dorn, Robert Duncan, Paul Goodman,

Francine du Plessix Gray Francine du Plessix Gray (September 25, 1930 – January 13, 2019), was a French-American Pulitzer Prize–nominated writer and literary critic. Early life and education She was born on September 25, 1930, in Warsaw, Poland, where her father ...

Hilda Morley Hilda Morley (September 19, 1916 – March 23, 1998) was an American poet associated with the Black Mountain movement. Biography She was born Hilda Auerbach in New York City to Russian parents. Her father, Rachmiel Auerbach, was a doctor, and ...

, Charles Olson,

M. C. Richards Mary Caroline Richards (July 13, 1916, Weiser, Idaho – September 10, 1999, Kimberton, Pennsylvania) was an American poet, potter, and writer best known for her book ''Centering: in Pottery, Poetry and the Person''.Smith, Roberta ''The New York ...

, Arthur Penn, and John Wieners.

Projective verse

1950 Events January * January 1 – The International Police Association (IPA) – the largest police organization in the world – is formed. * January 5 – 1950 Sverdlovsk plane crash, Sverdlovsk plane crash: ''Aeroflot'' Lisunov Li-2 cr ...

, Charles Olson published his seminal essay, '' Projective Verse''. In this, he called for a poetry of "open field" composition to replace traditional closed poetic forms with an improvised form that should reflect exactly the content of the poem. This form was to be based on the line, and each line was to be a unit of breath and of utterance. The content was to consist of "one perception immediately and directly (leading) to a further perception". This essay was to become a kind of ''de facto'' manifesto for the Black Mountain poets. One of the effects of narrowing the unit of structure in the poem down to what could fit within an utterance was that the Black Mountain poets developed a distinctive style of poetic diction (e.g. "yr" for "your").

Principal figures

In addition to Olson, the poets most closely associated with Black Mountain include

Larry Eigner Larry Eigner (August 7, 1927 – February 3, 1996), also known as Laurence Joel Eigner, was an American poet of the second half of the twentieth century and one of the principal figures of the Black Mountain School. Eigner is associated with th ...

, Robert Duncan, Ed Dorn, Paul Blackburn,

, John Wieners, Joel Oppenheimer, Denise Levertov, Jonathan Williams and

. Creeley worked as a teacher and editor of the '' Black Mountain Review'' for two years, moving to San Francisco in 1957. There, he acted as a link between the Black Mountain poets and the Beats, many of whom he had published in the review. Also, the appearance in 1960 of Donald Allen's anthology ''

The New American Poetry 1945–1960 ''The New American Poetry 1945–1960'' is a poetry anthology edited by Donald Allen and published in 1960. It aimed to pick out the "third generation" of American modernist poets, and included quite a number of poems fresh from the little magazin ...

'' (which divides the poets included in its pages into various ''schools'') was crucial: it established a legacy and promoted the influence of the Black Mountain poets worldwide.

Legacy

Apart from their strong interconnections with the Beats, the Black Mountain poets influenced the course of later American poetry via their importance for the poets later identified with the Language School. They were also important for the development of innovative British poetry since the 1960s, as evidenced by such poets as Tom Raworth and J. H. Prynne. In Canada, the Vancouver-based '' TISH'' group, including George Bowering and

Daphne Marlatt Daphne Marlatt, born Buckle, CM (born July 11, 1942 in Melbourne, Australia), is a Canadian poet and novelist who lives in Vancouver, British Columbia. At a young age her family moved to Malaysia and at age nine they moved to British Columbia, ...

, were heavily influenced by the Black Mountain poets. Modern projectivist poets include

Charles Potts Charles Potts (born August 28, 1943) is an American counter-culture poet. He is sometimes referred to as a projectivist poet and was mentored by Edward Dorn. Raised in rural Mackay, Idaho, Potts left Pocatello, Idaho and Idaho State University in ...

References

External links