The Fire: Collected Essays of Robin Blaser

Spanning four decades of meditation on the avant-garde in poetry, art, and philosophy, the essays collected in The Fire reveal Robin Blaser's strikingly fresh perspective on "New American" poets, deconstructive philosophies, current events, and the state of humanities now. The essays, gathered in one volume for the first time, include commentaries on Jack Spicer, Charles Olson, Robert Duncan, Mary Butts, George Bowering, Louis Dudek, Christos Dikeakos, and J. S. Bach. Blaser emerged from the "Berkeley Renaissance" of the 1940s and 1950s having studied under legendary medieval scholar Ernst Kantorowicz and having been a major participant in the burgeoning literary scene. His response to the cultural and political events of his time has been to construct a poetic voice that offers a singular perspective on a shareable world—and to pose that voice alongside others as a source of countermemory and potential agency. Conceived as conversations, these essays brilliantly reflect that ethos as they re-read the cultural events of the past fifty years.

Literature & Fiction

Blaser, Robin

History & Criticism

University of California Press

Essays & Correspondence

Robin Blaser, one of the key North American poets of the postwar period, emerged from the "Berkeley Renaissance" of the 1940s and 1950s as a central figure in that burgeoning literary scene. The Holy Forest, now spanning five decades, is Blaser's highly acclaimed lifelong serial poem. This long-awaited revised and expanded edition includes numerous published volumes of verse, the ongoing "Image-Nation" and "Truth Is Laughter" series, and new work from 1994 to 2004. Blaser's passion for world making draws inspiration from the major poets and philosophers of our time—from friends and peers such as Robert Duncan, Jack Spicer, Charles Olson, Charles Bernstein, and Steve McCaffery to virtual companions in thought such as Hannah Arendt, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Michel Foucault, and Jacques Derrida, among others. This comprehensive compilation of Blaser's prophetic meditations on the histories, theories, emotions, experiments, and countermemories of the late twentieth century will stand as the definitive collection of his unique and luminous poetic oeuvre.

The Holy Forest: Collected Poems of Robin Blaser

Robin Blaser, one of the key North American poets of the postwar period, emerged from the "Berkeley Renaissance" of the 1940s and 1950s as a central figure in that burgeoning literary scene. The Holy Forest, now spanning five decades, is Blaser's highly acclaimed lifelong serial poem. This long-awaited revised and expanded edition includes numerous published volumes of verse, the ongoing "Image-Nation" and "Truth Is Laughter" series, and new work from 1994 to 2004. Blaser's passion for world making draws inspiration from the major poets and philosophers of our time―from friends and peers such as Robert Duncan, Jack Spicer, Charles Olson, Charles Bernstein, and Steve McCaffery to virtual companions in thought such as Hannah Arendt, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Michel Foucault, and Jacques Derrida, among others. This comprehensive compilation of Blaser's prophetic meditations on the histories, theories, emotions, experiments, and countermemories of the late twentieth century will stand as the definitive collection of his unique and luminous poetic oeuvre.

Holy Forest: Collected Poems of Robin Blaser

Bernstein, Charles

CREELEY, Robert

Nichols, Miriam

Robin Blaser moved from his native Idaho to attend the University of California, Berkeley, in 1944. While there, he developed as a poet, explored his homosexuality, engaged in a lively arts community, and met fellow travelers and poets Robert Duncan and Jack Spicer. The three men became the founding members of the Berkeley core of what is now known as the San Francisco Renaissance in New American Poetry. In the company of a small group of friends and writers in 1974, Blaser was asked to narrate his personal story and to comment on the Berkeley poetry scene. In twenty autobiographical audiotapes, Blaser talks about his childhood in Idaho, his time in Berkeley, and his participation in the making of a new kind of poetry. The Astonishment Tapes is the expertly edited transcript of these recordings by Miriam Nichols, Blaser’s editor and biographer. In The Astonishment Tapes Blaser comments extensively on the poetic principles that he, Duncan, and Spicer worked through, as well as the differences and dissonances between the three of them. Nichols has edited the transcripts only minimally, allowing readers to make their own interpretations of Blaser’s intentions. Sometimes gossipy, sometimes profound, Blaser offers his version on the inside story of one of the most significant moments in mid-twentieth century American poetry. The Astonishment Tapes is of considerable value and interest, not only to readers of Blaser, Duncan, and Spicer, but also to scholars of the early postmodern and twentieth-century American poetry.

The Astonishment Tapes: Talks on Poetry and Autobiography with Robin Blaser and Friends (Modern and Contemporary Poetics)

United States

University Alabama Press

Pell Mell, the middle voice, the syntax meeting its astonishments in its forward stride looking backwards, imagining an image nation where the heart is always torn, to pieces possessed by the other(s).

Pell Mell

Talonbooks

poetry, Blaser's 40-year masterwork

The Holy Forest

Poetry

Art and Reality: A Casebook of Concern

Arts & Photography

Talonbooks, Ltd.

Pell Mell, the middle voice, the syntax meeting its astonishments in its forward stride looking backwards, imagining an image nation where the heart is always tornto pieces possessed by the other(s). A book so sure of itself that Blaser can begin, after the act of said-and-done, a series called Great Companions. Lesser poets might, and have, called them masters.” But only because they lack Robin Blaser’s insistence on the audacious ever-present. A scatter of pearls for Aphrodite, and a lovely place to enter Blaser’s life work, The Holy Forest. As to the plot, Blaser himself has said:These poems follow a principle of randonnée the random and the given of the hunt, the game, the tour. Thus, randonnée is another title of this book, written, so to speak, in invisible ink. These poems are also a further movement in one long work that I call The Holy Forest, though that need not trouble the reader before the forest is full grown. Poems called Image-Nations come and go throughout, never to become a complete nation. And Great Companions of the art of poetry, a series which begins to gather here with Pindar and Robert Duncan, will continue until their voices close The Holy Forest. That’s the plot.”

The Irreparable

Nomados

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Books by Blaser, Robin

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Blaser, Robin. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Fire: Collected Essays of Robin Blaser

The Fire: Collected Essays of Robin Blaser

The Holy Forest: Collected Poems of Robin Blaser

Holy Forest: Collected Poems of Robin Blaser

The Astonishment Tapes: Talks on Poetry and Autobiography with Robin Blaser and Friends (Modern and Contemporary Poetics)

Pell Mell

The Holy Forest

Art and Reality: A Casebook of Concern

Pell Mell

The Irreparable