Today we're diving into the fascinating world of Black Mountain College, a truly unique educational experiment that took place in the mountains of North Carolina from 1933 to 1956.Lets talk about the poets.
Picture this: a school housed in old church buildings, where creativity and the arts were just as important as technical skills. Pretty cool, right? Now, this wasn't your average college. It attracted some seriously talented poets like:
Robert Creeley,
Robert Duncan,
Denise Levertov, and
Charles Olson.
These folks may have had different styles, but they shared some wild ideas about poetry that came to be known as "projective verse"
Olson, who was actually the last head honcho at Black Mountain, came up with this term in 1950.
Basically, projective verse is all about the process, not the end product.
It's like the poet is zapping their energy straight to the reader, without getting in the way themselves.
Creeley, who was both a student and teacher at Black Mountain, really ran with this idea. He even edited a super influential magazine called the Black Mountain Review. While Olson's poems were big and sprawling, Creeley's were tight and compact.
Duncan and Levertov also hung out at Black Mountain and became big names in this projective verse movement.
They were besties for years, but things got a bit tense when Levertov started mixing politics into her poetry.
This projective approach led to some seriously epic long-form poems.
We're talking Olson's Maximus poems, Creeley's Pieces, and Duncan's "Structure of Rime" and "Passages". These works really show what projective verse could do.
So there you have it, folks - a little taste of the wild and wonderful world of Black Mountain College and the poets who made it legendary. Until next time, keep those creative juices flowing!
Sources [1] Art and Education at Black Mountain College 1933-1956 rafountain.com/shop/product/a...[2] Black Mountain College - MIT Press mitpress.mit.edu/978026251845...[3] The Life and Work of an Institution of Progressive Higher Education www.blackmountaincollege.org/...[4] America's Most Radical Educational Experiment - Mental Floss www.mentalfloss.com/article/6...[5] Black Mountain College: Experiment in Art - Amazon.com www.amazon.com/Black-Mountain...