Customer Reviews

Selected Poems (Revised and Enlarged Edition) (New Directions Paperbook)

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Fine as an introduction to Duncan, but not for serious study. At best, this is a "Greatest Hits" record--though that said, it's a bit like buying Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits. It's good in that it touches every portion of his career, but since Duncan worked so fiercely in the poetics of the series and the idea of "the book of poetry," ultimately it leaves the reader wanting.

While a bit disappointing and limited (as all "Selected Poems" will be), this volume succeeds as an introduction to Robert Duncan's impressive body of work. Particularly of interest are the excerpts from early volumes (pre- "The Opening of the Field" and presumably out of print) which evidence Duncan's evolution. Along with Jack Spicer and Robin Blaser, Robert Duncan revolutionized American poetry during the Berkeley renaissance; their triumvirate of influence, more so than any combination of Beat writers, defined homosexual poetics in the twentieth century. The addition of Kenneth Rexroth and Weldon Kees to the list of great Californian poets of that period makes a good case for it being the most underrated generation of American poets. Sadly, unlike the other four, Duncan has never had a "Collected Poems" assembled for him. Let's hope that someday soon, that will be rectified.

"How will we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?" cries the Psalmist. Robert Duncan was an orphan, a modernist and lyticist. With HD and her contemporaries, he sang in a deep and devout voice from the American wilderness.

No "selected" collection does any poet justice, and Duncan is best read complete. But this volume contains favorites and is large enough to cover both the holy and secular grounds that Duncan mapped.

As always, read inwardly and aloud. You will find wonder and treasure here.