Robert Duncan (poet)

Robert Duncan , born the January 7th 1919 and deceased the February 3rd 1988, is a writer and American poet , dependant on the literary current of Black Mountain and on that of the Beat generation. It was also one of the figures headlights of the Renaissance of San Francisco.

Biography

Robert Duncan was born with Oakland, in California. His/her mother dies during the childbirth and it is adopted by a family of theosophists. It grows in an environment impresses spirituality and of mysticism. In 1936, it undertakes studies with the the University of California to Berkeley. He writes his first poems, marked by his left-wing policy convictions, and acquires a reputation of Bohemian. In 1938, it enters to the Black Mountain College, but does not remain there a long time because of a conflict with the body teaching about the Guerre of Spain. It spends two years to Philadelphia then settles with Woodstock, where it works for the magazine The Phoenix . It meets there Henry Miller and Anaïs Nin, both enthusiastic of its work of poetry.

Duncan and homosexuality

With Philadelphia, Robert Duncan maintains a relation with a teacher whom it had met with Berkeley. In 1941, it is enlisted in the army and publicly affirms its Homosexualité in order to be reformed. It has its first hétérosexuelle relation in 1943, which leads on a short and disastrous marriage. It publishes in 1944, in the magazine Politics , a test entitled The Homosexual in Society , in which it compares the difficult condition of homosexual with that of the Afro-Americans and the Jews. It becomes by this publication the first poet American with speaking openly about the role of its homosexuality in the process of its artistic creation, and thus opens for the first time in the American history the way with a reflection on homosexuality and arts. Of 1951 until its death, it lives with the painter Jess Collins. Before this relation, it had a relation with Robert de Niro Sr, the father of the actor Robert de Niro.

San Francisco

In 1945, Duncan returns to San Francisco where it binds friendship with the poet Kenneth Rexroth, with which it maintained a correspondence for a certain time. It turns over to Berkeley to study the literature of the Moyen-âge and the Renaissance, and gives an indication of follower of the Chamanisme in the literary circles and artistic. He sympathizes with the poets Jack Spicer and Robin Blaser. At the beginning of the Years 1950, it writes in the reviews Origin of Cid Corman and Black Mountain Review , and teaches with the Black Mountain College. These bonds and connections will play a crucial role for the implication of the poets of the current Black Mountain in the Renaissance of San Francisco.

External bonds

the page of '' Robert Duncan ''
Robert Duncan, Ten Poems, 1940 to 1980 on the site of the magazine Jacket

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