Bertholf, Robert J. (Editor); Smith, Dale M. (Editor); Boer, Charles; Duncan, Robert; Olson, Charles

Imagining Persons: Robert Duncan's Lectures on Charles Olson with: Ephemera

Albequerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press, 2017. First Edition. Hardcover. "In Robert Duncan's lectures on Charles Olson, given occasionally from 1961 to 1983, there is a full-throated challenge to the hegemony of New Criticism as an aesthetic and critical practice. Each lecture addresses Olson's notion of "projective verse" (for Duncan, "field poetics"), a method of composition that encourages the variables of personal creative practice to interact within a larger historical process of cultural realization. While Olson, who died in 1970, is the topic of these lectures, it's Duncan's extraordinary reach into his own poetic faculties that sustains the energy of the nine documents presented here. What emerges in them pays tribute to the marvelous creative energies of the Gloucester poet and expands with great detail the strategies of projective verse and its place in Duncan's vision of modernist writing." (From Introduction by Dale M. Smith, pg. 1) The collected lectures of Robert Duncan (1919-1988), the great Black Mountain School-San Francisco Renaissance poet, regarding the work & methodology of his mentor & colleague Charles Olson (1910-1970), the Black Mountain-&-Beyond Poet's Poet who is our favorite Maximus Obscurantist. Edited by Robert J. Bertholf (1940-2016), the acclaimed academician & Duncan bibliographer (see our item No. 2414); & Dale M. Smith, the esteemed Canadian author, editor & academician. With a Preface & Introduction (quoted above) by Smith. Hardcover in boards without dust jacket as issued, first edition, first printing as indicated by number sequence at copyright page. From the collection of Albert Glover (1942-2026), the distinguished poet, bibliographer, editor, publisher & educator who was the foremost remaining authority on Olson, & was our honored friend who very recently passed away. Glover was a student of & anointed by the Maximus Master himself at SUNY Buffalo during the 1960s, & thereafter was an outstanding Bearer of the Olsonian Torch- we are deeply saddened by his passing & extend our condolences to his family. We found & have retained, between front paste-down & endpaper, a hand-typed & signed note dated January 23, 1976 to Glover from Charles Boer (1939-2014), the American poet, author, translator & scholar at the University of Connecticut who was another key associate of Olson & was appointed his literary executor by Maximus himself shortly before his death. The "book" referred to in the note (see image) is certainly his biography-memoir Charles Olson in Connecticut (1975, see our item No. 8327). The note is twice-folded horizontally & enclosed in its original mailing envelope, both in very fine condition. References to both Boer & Glover are to be found among the lectures or footnotes of this volume. We also have found & retained, between pgs. 158-159, Glover's bookmark promoting the research website of the Barnes & Noble bookstore chain, also in very fine condition. A scarce, rich & rewarding Duncan-Olson collectible in its rarest contemporary form, enhanced with relevant ephemera & with the highest association & provenance. In very fine condition with only slight rubbing, faint scratching & one instance of mild blistering (at back cover, probably as issued) to front, back covers & spine; a bit of wear & a few tiny bumps, creases at edges & corners of same. Interior very fine, appearing substantially mint. Very Fine. [Item #8797]

Price: $125.00 save 15% $106.25