| Robert Duncan (poet) |
Article Index for Robert Duncan |
Website Links For Robert Duncan |
Information AboutRobert Duncan (poet) |
|
Duncan was born in Oakland, California . His mother died in childbirth and he was adopted by a family of devout Theosophist s and grew up surrounded by the occult in one form or another. He started studying at the University Of California, Berkeley in 1936 . He started writing poems inspired by his Left Wing Politics and acquired a reputation as a bohemian. In 1938 , he briefly attended Black Mountain College , but left after a dispute with faculty on the subject of the Spanish Civil War . He spent two years in Philadelphia and then moved to Woodstock , New York , where he worked on James Cooney 's magazine ''The Phoenix'' and met Henry Miller and Anais Nin , who both admired his poetry. DUNCAN AND HOMOSEXUALITY In Philadelphia, Duncan had a relationship with a male instructor he had first met in Berkeley. In 1941 he was drafted and declared his homosexuality to get discharged. In 1943 , he had his first heterosexual relationship. This ended in a short, disastrous marriage. In 1944 , he published ''The Homosexual in Society'', an essay in which he compared the plight of homosexuals with that of African Americans and Jews. From 1951 until his death, he lived with the artist Jess Collins . Before then, he had a relationship with Robert De Niro Sr, the father of famed actor Robert De Niro Jr. SAN FRANCISCO Duncan returned to San Francisco in 1945 and was befriended by Kenneth Rexroth , with whom he had been in correspondence for some time. He returned to Berkeley to study Medieval and Renaissance Literature and cultivated a reputation as a shamanistic figure in San Francisco poetry and artistic circles. He also became friends with fellow poets Jack Spicer and Robin Blaser . In the early 1950s he started publishing in Cid Corman 's ''Origin'' and the ''Black Mountain Review'' and in 1956 he spent a time teaching at the Black Mountain College . These connections were instrumental in getting some of the Black Mountain Poets involved in the San Francisco Renaissance. MATURE WORKS During the 1960s, Duncan achieved considerable artistic and critical success with three books; ''The Opening of the Field'' ( 1960 ), ''Roots and Branches'' ( 1964 ), and ''Bending the Bow'' ( 1968 ). These are generally considered to be his most significant works. After ''Bending the Bow'', he vowed to avoid the distraction of publication for fifteen years. Duncan's friend and fellow poet, Michael Palmer , writes about this time in his essay "Ground Work: On Robert Duncan" :
PRIMARY WORKS
EXTERNAL LINKS
|
|
|