Jack Spicer

This book examines the literary impact of famed British poet, Barry MacSweeney, who worked at the forefront of poetic discovery in post-war Britain. Agitated equally by politics and the possibilities of artistic experimentation, Barry MacSweeney was ridiculed in the press, his literary reputation only recovering towards

A Literary Biography of Robin Blaser: Mechanic of Splendor is the first major study illustrating Robin Blaser’s significance to North American poetry. The poet Robin Blaser (1925–2009) was an important participant in the Berkeley Renaissance of the 1950s and San Francisco poetry circles of the 1960s. The book illuminates Blaser’s distinctive responses to and relationships with familiar writers including Robert Duncan, Jack Spicer, and Charles Olson via their correspondence. Blaser contributed to the formation of the serial poem as a dominant mode in post-war New American poetry through his work and engagement with the poetry communities of the time.