Prolegomena To A Future Poetics Reading Series Presents:
Robin Blaser reading from his own work

Robin Blaser found his beginnings as a poet in the excitement of the New American postmodern, particularly as it began to take shape in the work of his companions Jack Spicer and Robert Duncan in the late 1940s. Unlike many of his peers, however, Blaser has developed as a writer through subsequent generations and poetic movements; his work thus extends beyond the era in which it began. [link to remainder] An immigrant to Vancouver, British Columbia, in 1966, and a Canadian citizen since 1972, Blaser has established himself as a key figure on the west coast of B.C. and an important influence among Canadian experimental poets such as George Bowering, Steve McCaffery, bp Nichol, Erin Moure, and Daphne Marlatt. The Holy Forest, a lifelong serial poem composed of many books, is his major work in poetry and is still in process. The collection as it now exists in the 1993 edition published by Coach House Press is comprised of Earlier: The Boston Poems (1956-1958); Cups (1959-1960); The Park (1960); The Faerie Queen (1961); The Moth Poem (1962-1964); Image-Nations 1-4 (1962-1964); Les Chimeres (1963-1964); Charms (1964-1968); Image-Nations 5 -14 (1967-1974); Streams I (1974-1976); Syntax (1979-1981); Pell Mell (1981-1988); Great Companions (1971, 1988); Streams II (1986-1991); and Exody (1990-1993). In addition, Blaser has published numerous essays on poetics, including "The Fire", which was anthologized in The Poetics of the New American Poetry (1974), and "The Practice of Outside", which accompanies his edition of The Collected Books of Jack Spicer (1980). In 2000, he published a libretto for The Last Supper, an opera with music by British composer Sir Harrison Birtwistle. Currently, he has in the works a Collected Essays and an expanded edition of The Holy Forest that will include a new book of poems. Other recent titles include Wanders (2002) and The Irreperable (2003). In 2006 The University of California Press brought out a new edition of The Holy Forest.

Where: Sem 2 A1105
When: Monday, February 5th, at 7PM