Robert J. Bertholf (November 5, 1940 – February 19, 2016) was an author and professor at

Kent State University Kent State University (KSU) is a public research university in Kent, Ohio. The university also includes seven regional campuses in Northeast Ohio and additional facilities in the region and internationally. Regional campuses are located in As ...

, and the

University at Buffalo The State University of New York at Buffalo, commonly called the University at Buffalo (UB) and sometimes called SUNY Buffalo, is a public research university with campuses in Buffalo and Amherst, New York. The university was founded in 1846 ...

. He was the Charles D. Abbott Scholar-In-Residence and former curator of The Poetry Collection at Buffalo. Bertholf graduated from

Bowdoin College Bowdoin College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Brunswick, Maine. When Bowdoin was chartered in 1794, Maine was still a part of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The college offers 34 majors and 36 minors, as well as several joint eng ...

and received a masters and doctorate under A. Kingsley Weatherhead at the

University of Oregon The University of Oregon (UO, U of O or Oregon) is a public research university in Eugene, Oregon. Founded in 1876, the institution is well known for its strong ties to the sports apparel and marketing firm Nike, Inc, and its co-founder, billion ...

. In 1968, Bertholf joined the English Department faculty at

Kent, Ohio Kent is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the largest city in Portage County. It is located along the Cuyahoga River in Northeast Ohio on the western edge of the county. The population was 28,215 at the 2020 Census. The city is counted as pa ...

. Bertholf lead a cadre of young professors at the university, and was largely responsible for bringing an amazing troupe of poets and intellectuals as visiting professors or lecturers to Kent, including

Allen Ginsberg Irwin Allen Ginsberg (; June 3, 1926 – April 5, 1997) was an American poet and writer. As a student at Columbia University in the 1940s, he began friendships with William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, forming the core of the Beat Gener ...

, Robert Duncan,

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 ...

Joel Oppenheimer Joel Lester Oppenheimer (Jacob Hammer) (February 18, 1930 – October 11, 1988) was an American poet associated with both the Black Mountain poets and the New York School. He was the first director of the St. Marks Poetry Project (1966–68). T ...

Harvey Bialy Harvey Bialy (born 1945, New York City, died July 1, 2020) was an American molecular biology, molecular biologist and AIDS denialist. He was one of the signatories to a letter to the editor by the "Group for the Scientific Reappraisal of the HIV-AI ...

Joanne Kyger Joanne Kyger (November 19, 1934 – March 22, 2017) was an American poet. The author of over 30 books of poetry and prose, Kyger was associated with the poets of the San Francisco Renaissance, the Beat Generation, Black Mountain, and the New ...

and

Ed Dorn Edward Merton Dorn (April 2, 1929 – December 10, 1999, aged 70) was an American poet and teacher often associated with the Black Mountain poets. His most famous work is '' ''Gunslinger'. Overview Dorn was born in Villa Grove, Illinois. ...

Devo Devo (, originally ) is an American rock band from Akron, Ohio, formed in 1973. Their classic line-up consisted of two sets of brothers, the Mothersbaughs (Mark and Bob) and the Casales (Gerald and Bob), along with Alan Myers. The band had a ...

founders Bob Lewis and

Gerald Casale Gerald Vincent "Jerry" Casale ( ) ( ''né'' Pizzute; born July 28, 1948) is an American musician. He came to prominence in the late 1970s as co-founder, co-lead vocalist, and bass player of the new wave band Devo, which released a top 20 hit in ...

were students of Bertholf's at Kent, and Bertholf supported the nascent musical group by inviting them to perform at the university's creative arts festivals in 1973 and 1974. Bertholf later moved to

Buffalo, New York Buffalo is the second-largest city in the U.S. state of New York (behind only New York City) and the seat of Erie County. It is at the eastern end of Lake Erie, at the head of the Niagara River, and is across the Canadian border from South ...

where he was the curator of the renowned poetry collection at the State University at Buffalo, and then the Charles D. Abbott Scholar and Professor. Bertholf has written innumerable articles and books about American poets and poetry, including

Wallace Stevens Wallace Stevens (October 2, 1879 – August 2, 1955) was an American modernist poet. He was born in Reading, Pennsylvania, educated at Harvard and then New York Law School, and spent most of his life working as an executive for an insurance compa ...

, Robert Duncan,

Charles Olson Charles Olson (27 December 1910 – 10 January 1970) was a second generation modern American poet who was a link between earlier figures such as Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams and the New American poets, which includes the New York ...

, and other

Black Mountain poets The Black Mountain poets, sometimes called projectivist poets, were a group of mid-20th-century American ''avant-garde'' or postmodern poets centered on Black Mountain College in North Carolina. Background Although it lasted only twenty-three ...

like Oppenheimer, Creeley and Dorn. He received the Morton N. Cohen Award from the

Modern Language Association The Modern Language Association of America, often referred to as the Modern Language Association (MLA), is widely considered the principal professional association in the United States for scholars of language and literature. The MLA aims to "st ...

with

Albert Gelpi Albert Gelpi is the Coe Professor of American Literature Emeritus at Stanford University. He taught literature, particularly poetry, there between 1968 and 2002. Gelpi also wrote a trilogy of literary criticism involving American poetry: *''The ...

in 2003. After leaving Buffalo, Bertholf moved to Austin, Texas where he continued writing books and articles on American poets.

Works

as Author

* ''A Descriptive Catalog of the Private Library of Thomas B. Lockwood'' (1983) * ''Robert Duncan, A Descriptive Bibliography'' (1986) * ''Remembering Joel Oppenheimer'' (2005)

as Editor

* ''Credences'' (1977?-?) * ''Robert Duncan, Scales of the Marvelous'' (with Ian Reid) (1980) * ''William Blake and the Moderns'' (1982) * ''Lorine Neidecker, From This Condensery'' (1985) * ''Julian Stanczak: Decades of Light'' (additional text by Harry Rand and

Rudolf Arnheim Rudolf Arnheim (July 15, 1904 – June 9, 2007) was a German-born writer, art and film theorist, and perceptual psychologist. He learned Gestalt psychology from studying under Max Wertheimer and Wolfgang Köhler at the University of Berlin and ap ...

)(1990) * ''A Great Admiration, H.D./Robert Duncan Correspondence 1950-1961'' (1991) * ''Jess, a Grand Collage, 1951-1993'' (with Michael Auping and Michael Palmer)(1993) * ''Robert Duncan, Selected Poems'' (1993, new edition 1997) * ''Robert Duncan, A Selected Prose'' 1995! * ''Joel Oppenheimer, Drawing From Life'' (with David Landrey)(1997) * ''Joel Oppenheimer, Collected Later Poems'' (1998) * ''The Letters of Robert Duncan and Denise Levertov'' (with Albert Gelpi)(2003)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bertholf, Robert 1940 births American literary critics Kent State University faculty 2016 deaths University at Buffalo faculty Bowdoin College alumni University of Oregon alumni