Various (Butterick, George F.; Duncan, Robert; Glover, Albert; Wieners, John et al.)

The Institute of Further Studies: Spring Program (1967)

Buffalo, NY: Institute of Further Studies, 1967. First Edition. Single Sheet. Offered today is a spring program for events starting on March 1, 1967 for The Intstitute of Further Studies. The Institute of Further Studies was founded in 1965 in Buffalo, NY by Albert Glover (1942-2026), George F. Butterick (1942-1988), and Fred Wah (b. 1939). They were graduate students orbiting literary leviathan Charles Olson (1910-1970) at SUNY Buffalo, with John Clarke (1933-1992) closely involved from the start. Despite the name, it wasn't a school. It operated as a small-press and mailing operation; subscribers on a limited list received loose sheets and broadsides in envelopes, issued in batches. The Institute's larger legacy was A Curriculum of the Soul (See Item No.s 7966, 8138, 8341 et al.), 28 fascicles by poets including Robert Duncan, Michael McClure, Joanne Kyger, and Alice Notley, assigned by Clarke from Olson's plan after Olson's death in January 1970, and edited by Glover across thirty years. In spring 1967 Butterick was a doctoral student at SUNY Buffalo, so the seminar he was presenting, The Maximus Poems as 'Process' is the seed of what became his life's work: A Guide to the Maximus Poems of Charles Olson, the complete Maximus Poems & The Collected Poems. He went on to University of Connecticut as curator of the Olson archive in 1972 and stayed until his death in 1988. A seminar title with "as Process" in it, given while Olson was alive and still writing Maximus III, is a nice detail of Butterick treating the poem as unfinished and ongoing rather than as an object. Beat Generation poet John Wieners' (1934-2002) 4-part lecture Uses of the Unconscious in Writing falls at the very end of his Buffalo period, possibly among the last things he did there. The subject was his own ground: the Hotel Wentley Poems, Ace of Pentacles, and the dream-and-trance material of his journals. Glover's seminar Man in America from The Great Flood to the Birth of Christ was an inversion of Olson's central conviction: the usable material lies in what precedes the record. It inspired Glover to spend thirty years editing A Curriculum of the Soul to its completion. Duncan's lecture The Creative Imagination: The Derivation and Projection of a Poetry is the event's headliner. Duncan (1919-1988) was an outside figure the Institute brought in, meaning the event wasn't just local students teaching each other, it had the pull to import one of the major San Francisco Renaissance poets of the period. The title itself is the interesting part. "Derivation" is Duncan's own signature term. He was militant about being called a derivative poet and meant it as a boast, working by inheritance, imitation, and what he called the grand collage, against the American demand for originality. "Projection" is Olson's word, from Projective Verse (See Item No. 6612). Duncan was standing in an Olson institute and yoking his key term to Olson's in a single title. Their relationship was a real and productive friction, well documented in their correspondence, so this is not an homage title, it's Duncan staking out his own ground on Olson's turf. The lecture sits at the threshold of Duncan announcing that he would publish no major collection for fifteen years. The program taken as a whole reads as a coherent curriculum rather than unrelated sessions. Butterick on Olson's poem as unfinished process, Wieners on the unconscious, Duncan on derivation and projection, Glover on the prehistoric ground under all of it. With Olson himself in Gloucester, MA on indefinite leave, this is his circle teaching his program in his absence. From the personal collection of the aforementioned Glover, the esteemed American poet, editor, bibliographer, publisher & academician who was the foremost remaining authority on Olson. Glover was a student of & anointed by the Maximus Master himself at SUNY Buffalo during the 1960s, & had ever since served outstandingly to bear the Olsonian Torch. Third Mind Books is deeply saddened by the recent passing of our friend & mentor. Single Sheet (appx: 9" x 12," folded once vertically): First Edition, first-&-only printing. A most collectible Institute of Further Studies event program with ties to the Beat Generation/San Francisco Renaissance & Black Mountain School, in its rarest contemporary form with extremely relevant, very distinguished provenance. In relatively very fine condition with very mild rubbing to fine edges & bumping to corners. pinhole at top left corner piercing through back of sheet, likely due to wall hanging; otherwise essentially mint. Very Fine. [Item #9369]

Price: $75.00