Robin Francis Blaser (May 18, 1925 – May 7, 2009) was an author and

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral or writte ...

in both the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

and

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

Personal background

Born in

Denver, Colorado Denver () is a consolidated city and county, the capital, and most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Its population was 715,522 at the 2020 census, a 19.22% increase since 2010. It is the 19th-most populous city in the Unit ...

, Blaser grew up in

Idaho Idaho ( ) is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. To the north, it shares a small portion of the Canada–United States border with the province of British Columbia. It borders the states of Montana and Wyom ...

, and came to

Berkeley, California Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland and Emer ...

, in 1944. There he met

Jack Spicer Jack Spicer (January 30, 1925 – August 17, 1965) was an American poet often identified with the San Francisco Renaissance. In 2009, ''My Vocabulary Did This to Me: The Collected Poetry of Jack Spicer'' won the American Book Award for poetry. H ...

and Robert Duncan, becoming a key figure in the

San Francisco Renaissance The term San Francisco Renaissance is used as a global designation for a range of poetic activity centered on San Francisco, which brought it to prominence as a hub of the American poetry avant-garde in the 1950s. However, others (e.g., Alan Watts ...

of the 1950s and early 1960s. He moved to

in 1966, joining the faculty of

Simon Fraser University Simon Fraser University (SFU) is a public research university in British Columbia, Canada, with three campuses, all in Greater Vancouver: Burnaby (main campus), Surrey, and Vancouver. The main Burnaby campus on Burnaby Mountain, located from ...

; after taking early retirement in the 1980s, he held the position of

Professor Emeritus ''Emeritus'' (; female: ''emerita'') is an adjective used to designate a retired chair, professor, pastor, bishop, pope, director, president, prime minister, rabbi, emperor, or other person who has been "permitted to retain as an honorary title ...

. He lived in the

Kitsilano Kitsilano () is a neighbourhood located in the city of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Kitsilano is named after Squamish chief August Jack Khatsahlano, and the neighbourhood is located in Vancouver's West Side along the south shore of Engli ...

neighborhood of

Vancouver Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the ...

British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, ...

. In June 1995, for Blaser's 70th birthday, a conference was held in Vancouver to pay tribute to his contribution to

Canadian poetry Canadian poetry is poetry of or typical of Canada. The term encompasses poetry written in Canada or by Canadian people in the official languages of English and French, and an increasingly prominent body of work in both other European and Indigenou ...

. The conference, known as the "Recovery of the Public World" (a phrase borrowed from

Hannah Arendt Hannah Arendt (, , ; 14 October 1906 – 4 December 1975) was a political philosopher, author, and Holocaust survivor. She is widely considered to be one of the most influential political theorists of the 20th century. Arendt was born ...

), was attended by poets from around the world, including Canadian poets

Michael Ondaatje Philip Michael Ondaatje (; born 12 September 1943) is a Sri Lankan-born Canadian poet, fiction writer, essayist, novelist, editor, and filmmaker. He is the recipient of multiple literary awards such as the Governor General's Award, the Giller P ...

Steve McCaffery Steven McCaffery (born January 24, 1947) is a Canadian poet and scholar who was a professor at York University. He currently holds the David Gray Chair at the University at Buffalo, The State University of New York. McCaffery was born in Sheffie ...

Phyllis Webb Phyllis Webb (April 8, 1927 – November 11, 2021) was a Canadian poet and broadcaster. Webb's poetry had diverse influences, ranging from neo-Confucianism to the field theory of composition developed by the Black Mountain poets. Critics have ...

George Bowering George Harry Bowering, (born December 1, 1935) is a prolific Canadian novelist, poet, historian, and biographer. He was the first Canadian Parliamentary Poet Laureate. He was born in Penticton, British Columbia, and raised in the nearby town o ...

Fred Wah Frederick James Wah, OC, (born January 23, 1939) is a Canadian poet, novelist, scholar and former Canadian Parliamentary Poet Laureate. Life Wah was born in Swift Current, Saskatchewan, but grew up in the interior (West Kootenay) of British Columbi ...

Stan Persky Stan Persky (born 19 January 1941) is a Canadian writer, media commentator and philosophy instructor. Early life Persky was born in Chicago, Illinois. As a teenager, he made contact with and received encouragement from Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsb ...

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, ...

; and poets who reside in the

, including Michael Palmer and

Norma Cole Norma Cole (born May 12, 1945) is a Canadian poet, visual artist, translator, and curator. An Anglophone Canadian by birth, Cole learned French at an early age, and went on to translate the works of French poets Emmanuel Hocquard, Danielle Collo ...

(who was born in Canada, subsequently migrating to

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

). Blaser was also well known as the editor of ''

The Collected Books of Jack Spicer ''The Collected Books of Jack Spicer'' first appeared in 1975, ten years after the death of Jack Spicer. It was "edited & with a commentary by Robin Blaser" and published in Santa Rosa, California by Black Sparrow Press. A primary document of the ...

'', which includes Blaser's essay, ''The Practice of Outside''. The 1993 publication ''The Holy Forest'' represents his collected poems to that date. In 2006, Blaser received a special Lifetime Recognition Award given by the trustees of the Griffin Trust for Excellence in Poetry, which also awards the annual

Griffin Poetry Prize The Griffin Poetry Prize is Canada's most generous poetry award. It was founded in 2000 by businessman and philanthropist Scott Griffin. Before 2022, the awards went to one Canadian and one international poet who writes in the English language. ...

. Blaser won the Prize itself in 2008.

Bibliography

Poetry

*''The Moth Poem'', 1964 *'' Les Chimères: Translations of Nerval for Fran Herndon'', 1969 *''Cups'', 1968 *''Image Nations 1-12 & The Stadium of the Mirror'', 1974 *''Image Nations 13 & 14, Luck Unluck Oneluck, Sky-stone, Suddenly, Gathering'', 1975 *''Harp Trees'', 1977 *''Image Nation 15: The Lacquerhouse'', 1981 *''Syntax'', 1983 *''The Faerie Queene and The Park'', 1987 *''Pell Mell'', 1988 *''The Holy Forest'', 1993 *''Nomad'', 1995 *''Wanders'', with Meredith Quartermain, 2002 *''The Holy Forest: Collected Poems of Robin Blaser'',

2007 File:2007 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Steve Jobs unveils Apple's first iPhone; TAM Airlines Flight 3054 overruns a runway and crashes into a gas station, killing almost 200 people; Former Pakistani Prime Minister of Pakistan, Pr ...

(winner of the 2008 Canadian

)

Essays

*''The Fire'', 1974 *''The Metaphysics of Light'', 1974 *''The Practice of Outside'', 1975 *''The Violets: Charles Olson and

Alfred North Whitehead Alfred North Whitehead (15 February 1861 – 30 December 1947) was an English mathematician and philosopher. He is best known as the defining figure of the philosophical school known as process philosophy, which today has found applicat ...

'', 1983 *''My Vocabulary Did This To Me'', 1987 *''Poetry and Positivisms'', 1989 *''The Elf of It'', 1992 *''The Recovery of the Public World'' and ''Among Afterthoughts on This Occasion'', 1993 *''Here Lies the Woodpecker Who Was Zeus'', 1995 *''Thinking about Irreparables, a talk'', 2000 *''The Fire: Collected Essays of Robin Blaser'', 2006 edited by Miriam Nichols, (University California Press, 518 pgs). Includes "Poetry and Positivisms," "The Recovery of the Public World," " 'My Vocabulary Did This to Me,' " "The 'Elf' of It," "Bach's Belief," and many others.

Opera libretto

*''

The Last Supper Image:The Last Supper - Leonardo Da Vinci - High Resolution 32x16.jpg, 400px, alt=''The Last Supper'' by Leonardo da Vinci - Clickable Image, Depictions of the Last Supper in Christian art have been undertaken by artistic masters for centuries, ...

, the libretto for Harrison Birtwistle's opera (2000)

References

External links

Robin Blaser Homepage at the Electronic Poetry CenterLiterary Encyclopedia entryGriffin Poetry Prize biographyGriffin Poetry Prize reading, including video clipGriffin Poetry Prize Lifetime Recognition Award
* ttps://web.archive.org/web/20120425163126/http://malahatreview.ca/issues/176reviews_cole.html "Robyn Blaser and Friendship," a review essay by Richard Colebr>MP3 files of Blaser's readings and lecturesSmall Press Traffic honor Blaser's entry in ''The Canadian Encyclopedia''Robin Blaser's obituary notice
from poet

Charles Bernstein Charles Bernstein may refer to: * Charles Bernstein (composer) (born 1943), American composer of film and television scores * Charles Bernstein (poet) Charles Bernstein (born April 4, 1950) is an American poet, essayist, editor, and literary sc ...

, including Bernstein's "Afterword" to ''The Holy Forest: Collected Poems of Robin Blaser'' (2006)
"Robin Blaser, 1925-2009: Death’s Duty"
by

‘Showing us things both marvellous and horrific'
by Sandra Martin in ''The Globe and Mail''
Records of Robin Blaser are held by Simon Fraser University's Special Collections and Rare Books
{{DEFAULTSORT:Blaser, Robin 1925 births 2009 deaths 20th-century Canadian male writers 20th-century Canadian poets 20th-century Canadian dramatists and playwrights 21st-century Canadian male writers 21st-century Canadian poets American emigrants to Canada American opera librettists Canadian male poets Canadian gay writers Canadian LGBT poets American LGBT writers Poets from Colorado Simon Fraser University faculty Writers from Berkeley, California Writers from Denver Writers from Idaho Writers from Vancouver 20th-century LGBT people