Robert Duncan - Letters
Stream, 1968. Seven examples are located in institutional collections, and one example traced in bookseller listings from years back. Not present in ours is a leaf of contents listing the following:
Upkingd by affection --
Upon taking hold --
First invention on the theme from Adam --
Metamorphasis --
Light song --
It's spring ; Love's spring. --
At the end of a period --
True to life --
Words open out upon grief --
At home --
Re- --
Spelling the word --
Correspondences --
The green lady --
Source --
An owl is an only bird of poetry --
New tidings --
Changing trains --
The language of love --
The siren song --
Source magic --
Circulating lights.
Not only a poet, but also a public intellectual, Duncan's presence was felt across many facets of popular culture. His name is prominent in the history of pre-Stonewallgay culture and in the emergence of bohemian socialist communities of the 1930s and '40s, in the Beat Generation, and also in the cultural and political upheaval of the 1960s, influencing occult and gnostic circles of the time. During the later part of his life, Duncan's work, published by City Lights and New Directions, came to be distributed worldwide, and his influence as a poet is evident today in both mainstream and avant-garde writing.[2]
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