The Unruly Garden

Robert Duncan was a defining figure of twentieth-century American poetry. Eric Mottram was a pioneer in the field of American Studies in the UK and a key contributor to the British Poetry Revival. In the 1970s the two men conducted a wide-ranging dialogue on poetry, politics and the religious through an exchange of intense and often expansive letters. Mottram continued the dialogue in two substantive critical examinations of Duncan's work. The Unruly Garden presents an annotated edition of the complete available correspondence along with the two essays. The first essay was heavily edited when originally published and is included here in its restored form. The second essay appeared in a small press magazine and now receives the wider circulation it deserves.

Autorentext

The Editors: Amy Evans is a Teaching Fellow in American Studies at King's College London where she is completing a doctoral thesis on Robert Duncan.
Shamoon Zamir is a Reader in American Studies at King's College London. His publications include Dark Voices: W.E.B. Du Bois and American Thought, 1888-1903 as well as articles on American ction, poetry and photography. He co-founded and co-edited Talus, an international journal of contemporary writing and cultural studies, and Talus Editions, a poetry small press.

Zusammenfassung
«This generous correspondence between Robert Duncan and Eric Mottram reveals a rich, transatlantic friendship between a major U.S. poet and an important U.K. critic. Duncan's obvious respect for Mottram, who wrote extensively on contemporary American writers, permits him an intellectual and critical expansiveness that illuminates many aspects of his poetry. Mottram's keen understanding of Duncan's work and the political and cultural life of the U.S. during the 1970s provides an incisive look at literary culture during the late days of the Vietnam era. Amy Evans and Shamoon Zamir's superb introduction and textual notes make this volume an essential complement to Duncan's work.» (Michael Davidson, author of 'The San Francisco Renaissance' (1989), 'Ghostlier Demarcations' (1997) and 'Guys Like Us' (2003))
«These letters chart a decade of incredible discoveries and remorseless entrenchments for Duncan; it's amazing to read here a record of the ideas that found their way into the first volume of Ground Work. The Unruly Garden, wild as it appears, is nothing less than a well-plotted labyrinth into this late, great work.» (Peter O'Leary, author of 'Gnostic Contagion: Robert Duncan and the Poetry of Illness' (2002))

Inhalt

Contents: Robert Duncan/Eric Mottram: Entertaining Interference - Robert Duncan: A Pre PreFace for Eric Mottram - Eric Mottram: Letter to Robert Duncan - Letters: Duncan and Mottram - Essays: Eric Mottram: Heroic Survival through Ecstatic Forms: Robert Duncan's Roots and Branches - Eric Mottram: Robert Duncan: The Possibilities of an Adequate History and of a Poetics of Event.