Ed Dorn

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Ed Dorn & Jennifer Dunbar Dorn
Ed Dorn & Jennifer Dunbar Dorn

Edward Dorn (April 2, 1929 — December 10, 1999) was an American poet and teacher often associated with the Black Mountain poets.

Contents

[edit] Overview

Edward Merton Dorn was born in Villa Grove, Illinois and studied at the University of Illinois and at Black Mountain College (1950-1955). At Black Mountain he came into contact with Charles Olson, who greatly influenced his literary worldview and his sense of himself as poet. Dorn's final examiner at Black Mountain was Robert Creeley, with whom, along with the poet Robert Duncan, Dorn became included as one of a trio of younger poets later associated with Black Mountain and with Charles Olson. [1]

In 1951, Dorn left Black Mountain and travelled to the Pacific Northwest, where he did manual work and met his first wife, Helene; they returned to the school in late 1954. After graduation and two years of travel, Dorn's family settled in Washington state. His first book, The Newly Fallen, was published by Amiri Baraka's Totem Press in 1961.

Dorn's main work, his magnum opus, is Gunslinger. Gunslinger is a long poem in four sections. Part 1 was first published in 1968, and the final complete text appeared in 1989. Other important publications include The Collected Poems: 1956-1974 (1975) and High West Rendezvous: A Sampler (1997).

Dorn died of pancreatic cancer on December 10, 1999 in Denver, Colorado. His papers are collected at the University of Connecticut.

[edit] Dorn's teaching career

During his life, Dorn taught at a number of institutions of higher learning, including Idaho State University at Pocatello (1961-65); the University of Essex, Great Britain (1965-1970) as a Fulbright lecturer; Northeastern Illinois University at Chicago (1970-1971); Kent State University, Ohio (1973-74); and the University of Colorado (1977-1999). His second wife, Jennifer Dunbar Dorn, was an Englishwoman he met during his Essex-years.

In the early 1970's, as a visiting poet at Kent State University, Dorn, along with British poet and editor Eric Mottram, was a mentor and supporter of the musical group Devo, and its founders Gerald Casale and Bob Lewis.

[edit] Selected works

  • What I See in the Maximus Poems. 1960.
  • The Newly Fallen. Totem Press, 1961.
  • Hands Up!. Totem Press, 1964.
  • From Gloucester Out. Matrix Press, 1964.
  • Idaho Out. Fulcrum Press, 1965.
  • Geography. Fulcrum Press, 1965.
  • The Rites of Passage. Frontier Press, 1965.
  • The Shoshoneans: The People of the Basin Plateau. 1966.
  • The North Atlantic Turbine. Fulcrum Press, 1967.
  • Gunslinger. Black Sparrow Press, 1968.
  • Gunslinger: Book II. Black Sparrow Press, 1969.
  • The Midwest Is That Space Between the Buffalo Statler and the Lawrence Eldridge. T. Williams, 1969.
  • The Cosmology of Finding Your Spot. Cottonwood, 1969.
  • Twenty-four Love Songs. Frontier Press, 1969.
  • Tree Between Two Walls, 1969.
  • Gunslinger I & II. Fulcrum Press, 1970.
  • Songs: Set Two, a Short Count. Frontier Press, 1970.
  • Spectrum Breakdown: A Microbook. Athanor Books, 1971.
  • By the Sound. Frontier Press, 1971. A novel.
  • The Cycle. Frontier Press, 1971.
  • Some Business Recently Transacted in the White World. Frontier Press, 1971.
  • A Poem Called Alexander Hamilton. Tansy/Peg Leg Press, 1971.
  • The Hamadryas Baboon at the Lincoln Park Zoo. Wine Press, 1972.
  • Gunslinger, Book III: The Winterbook, Prologue to the Great Book IV Kornerstone. Frontier Press, 1972.
  • Recollections of Gran Apacheria. Turtle Island, 1974.
  • Slinger [contains Gunslinger, Books I-IV and The Cycle]. Wingbow Press, 1975.
  • Manchester Square. [With Jennifer Dunbar] Permanent Press, 1975.
  • Collected Poems: 1956-1974. Four Seasons Foundation, 1975.
  • Manchester Square. Permanent Press, 1975.
  • Hello, La Jolla. Wingbow Press, 1978.
  • Selected Poems. Edited by Donald Allen, Grey Fox Press, 1978.
  • Views, 1980.
  • Yellow Lola. Cadmus, 1981.
  • Captain Jack's Chaps / or, Houston MLA. Madison, WI: Black Mesa Press, 1983.
  • Abhorrences. Black Sparrow Press, 1989.
  • Gunslinger. Duke University Press, 1989.
  • High West Rendezvous: A Sampler. Etruscan Books, 1997.
  • Chemo Sábe. Limberlost Press, 2001.
  • Way More West (edited by Michael Rothenberg). Penguin Books, 2007. ISBN 0-14303-869-9
  • Ed Dorn Live: Lectures, Interviews, and Outtakes (edited by Joseph Richey). University of Michigan Press, 2007. ISBN 0-47206-862-8

[edit] Further Reading

  • Clark Tom (2002) Edward Dorn: A World of Difference. Berkeley: North Atlantic Books.
  • Levy, William (20 January 2000) "Death of a Gunslinger: An Obituary on Ed Dorn for America." Exquisite Corpse, Issue 4.
  • Sherman, Paul (1981) The Lost America of Love: Rereading Robert Creeley, Edward Dorn, and Robert Duncan. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press.
  • Spitzer, Mark (1996) Dinner with Slinger, in Thus Spake the Corpse, An Exquisite Corpse Reader 1988-1998, Vol. 2 - Fictions, Travels & Translations (Codrescu, A and Rosenthal, L, eds.) Santa Rosa: Black Sparrow Press.
  • Spitzer, Mark (1999) "Transcript of an Ed Dorn Rant" Jack Magazine, Issue 4.
  • Streeter, David ed. (1973) A Bibliography of Ed Dorn. New York: The Phoenix Bookshop.

[edit] References

  1. ^ The book The Lost America of Love, by Sherman Paul, celebrates this relationship, as did the Charles Olson conference held under Paul's direction at the University of Iowa in 1978, in which Dorn, Duncan, and Creeley were the only poets participating among a flurry of academic literary scholars. Dorn is now considered by some commentators to be the inheritor of Olson's bardic mantle, the transmittee of the lamp.

[edit] External links

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