Paul
Blackburn (USA)
1926-1971
In 1945 Blackburn entered New York
University, but soon after joined the army, just as World War II was ending,
and spent most his service as a laboratory assistant in Colorado.
In
1947 Blackburn returned to New York University, transferring to the University
of Wisconsin in Madison in 1949 and graduating there in 1950.

Through Pound’s influence, Blackburn
became interested in Provençal poetry, studying the languages of Provence while
at Wisconsin. In 1953 he published, on Divers Press, a volume of Provençal
poetry and, later, translated the medieval epic Poema del Miro Cid, as well as poetry by Federico García Lorca,
Octavio Paz, and Pablo Picasso. He also translated short tales by Argentinian
author Julio Cortázar, serving for a while as his literary agent.
His own first collection of poetry, The Dissolving Fabric, was published in
1955, followed by Brooklyn-Manhattan
Transit in 1960, The Nets (1961),
and Sing-Song published in Caterpillar magazine in 1966. Grove
Press published his The Cities in
1967.
Throughout this period Blackburn also
encouraged younger poets, organizing readings for poets involved with The Deep
Image, the Beats, The New York School, and Black Mountain Poets. His readings
are often seen as the progenitor to the famed St. Mark’s Poetry Project.
He worked throughout much of the 1960s at
short-lived editorial positions and through translating, becoming poetry editor
for a short period at The Nation. He
also headed a show on WBAI radio in which he interviewed numerous poets and
presented readings. Later in that decade he began teaching at various writer’s
conferences and short-term venues. Winning the Guggenheim Fellowship in 1967
permitted him to travel to Europe and work more determinedly on his poetry and
translations, supporting himself through readings and teaching stints upon his
return until his death of esophageal cancer in September 1971.
Blackburn’s Collected Poems, edited by Edith Jarolim, were published by Persea
Books in 1985.
BOOKS
OF POETRY
The Dissolving
Fabric (Palma
de Mallorca: Divers Press, 1955); Brooklyn-Manhattan
Transit (New York: Totem, 1960); The
Nets (New York: Trobar, 1961); Sing-Song
(in Caterpillar, no. 4, December
1966); Sixteen Sloppy Haiku & a Lyric
for Robert Reardon (Cleveland: 400 Rabbit Press, 1966); The Reardon Poems (Madison, Wisconsin:
Perishable Press, 1967); The Cities (New
York: Grove Press, 1967); In . On . Or
About the Premises (London/New York: Cape Goliard/Grossman, 1968); Two New Poems (Madison, Wisconsin:
Perishable Press, 1969); Gin: Four
Journal Pieces (Mt. Horeb, Wisconsin: Perishable Press, 1970); Three Dreams and an Old Poem (Buffalo:
University Press at Buffalo, 1970); The Assassination of
President McKinley (Mt. Horeb, Wisconsin: Perishable Press, 1970); Early Selected Y Mas (Los Angeles: Black
Sparrow, 1972); The Journals (ed. by
Robert Kelly) (Santa Barbara, California: Black Sparrow, 1975); Halfway Down the Coast (Northampton,
Massachusetts: Mulch Press, 1975); Against
the Silences (London/New York: Permanent Press, 1980); The Selection of Heaven (Mt. Horeb, Wisconsin: Perishable Press,
1980); The Collected Poems of Paul
Blackburn (ed. by Edith Jarolim) (New York: Persea Books, 1985)
To
read a longer biography, click below:
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/paul-blackburn
For
a selection of Blackburn’s poems and translations, click below:
http://epc.buffalo.edu/authors/blackburn/For a selection of Paul Blackburn reading his poems, link below:
http://writing.upenn.edu/pennsound/x/Blackburn.php
2 comments:
Paul read beautifully... his rendition of Lou Ferlinghetti's "Coney Island of the Mind" is a classic...
Paul's beautiful rendition of "Coney Island of the Mind" is a classic....
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