The Holy Forest
The Holy Forest: Collected Poems of Robin Blaser, Revised and Expanded Edition.
Edited by Miriam Nichols
Foreword by Robert Creeley
With a new afterword by Charles Bernstein
Copyright Date: 2006
Edition: 1
Published by: University of California Press
Pages: 544
https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/j.ctt1pphk2
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The Holy Forest
Book Description:

Robin Blaser, one of the key North American poets of the postwar period, emerged from the "Berkeley Renaissance" of the 1940s and 1950s as a central figure in that burgeoning literary scene.The Holy Forest,now spanning five decades, is Blaser's highly acclaimed lifelong serial poem. This long-awaited revised and expanded edition includes numerous published volumes of verse, the ongoing "Image-Nation" and "Truth Is Laughter" series, and new work from 1994 to 2004. Blaser's passion for world making draws inspiration from the major poets and philosophers of our time-from friends and peers such as Robert Duncan, Jack Spicer, Charles Olson, Charles Bernstein, and Steve McCaffery to virtual companions in thought such as Hannah Arendt, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Michel Foucault, and Jacques Derrida, among others. This comprehensive compilation of Blaser's prophetic meditations on the histories, theories, emotions, experiments, and countermemories of the late twentieth century will stand as the definitive collection of his unique and luminous poetic oeuvre.

eISBN: 978-0-520-93225-8
Subjects: Language & Literature
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  1. Front Matter
    Front Matter (pp. i-iv)
  2. Table of Contents
    Table of Contents (pp. v-xvi)
  3. FOREWORD
    FOREWORD (pp. xvii-xxii)
    Robert Creeley

    For a reader to begin here may well prove displacing if one expects to find either a simple explanation or some securing directions. I have read Robin Blaser’s consummate poetry for years, but I cannot predicate its authority on any sense that it has answered the questions which compelled it or come to the conclusion of what it thought to say. What has to be recognized is that these poems are not a defining “progress,” or a skilfully accomplished enclosure. Above all else I must emphasize a sense often echoed here, that the “unfolded fold” to be found in his...

  4. A NOTE ON THE TEXT
    A NOTE ON THE TEXT (pp. xxiii-xxiv)
    Miriam Nichols
  5. AUTHOR’S NOTE
    AUTHOR’S NOTE (pp. xxv-2)
    Robin Blaser
  6. The Boston Poems 1956–1959
    The Boston Poems 1956–1959 (pp. 3-28)
    Cleo Adams
  7. Cups 1–12 1959–1960
    Cups 1–12 1959–1960 (pp. 29-46)
  8. The Park 1960
    The Park 1960 (pp. 47-56)
  9. The Faerie Queene 1961
    The Faerie Queene 1961 (pp. 57-64)
  10. The Moth Poem 1962–1964
    The Moth Poem 1962–1964 (pp. 65-86)
    H.D.
  11. Image-Nations 1–4 1962–1964
    Image-Nations 1–4 1962–1964 (pp. 87-94)
  12. Les Chimères 1963–1964
    Les Chimères 1963–1964 (pp. 95-108)
    Fran Herndon
  13. Charms 1964–1968
    Charms 1964–1968 (pp. 109-138)
    Stan Persky
  14. Great Companion: Pindar 1971
    Great Companion: Pindar 1971 (pp. 139-146)
  15. Image-Nations 5–14 and Uncollected Poems 1965–1974
    Image-Nations 5–14 and Uncollected Poems 1965–1974 (pp. 147-188)
  16. Streams I 1974–1976
    Streams I 1974–1976 (pp. 189-200)
  17. Syntax 1979–1981
    Syntax 1979–1981 (pp. 201-242)
    David Farwell
  18. Pell Mell 1981–1988
    Pell Mell 1981–1988 (pp. 243-332)
    David Farwell and Rob Dunham
  19. Great Companion: Robert Duncan 1988
    Great Companion: Robert Duncan 1988 (pp. 333-340)
  20. Streams II 1986–1991
    Streams II 1986–1991 (pp. 341-366)
  21. Exody 1990–1993
    Exody 1990–1993 (pp. 367-396)
  22. Notes 1994–2000
    Notes 1994–2000 (pp. 397-434)
  23. Great Companion: Dante Alighiere 1997
    Great Companion: Dante Alighiere 1997 (pp. 435-458)
  24. Wanders 2001–2002
    Wanders 2001–2002 (pp. 459-486)
  25. So 2003
    So 2003 (pp. 487-494)
  26. Oh! 2004
    Oh! 2004 (pp. 495-506)
    Robin Blaser
  27. AFTERWORD
    AFTERWORD (pp. 507-510)
    Charles Bernstein

    Robin Blaser’s poems are companions on a journey of life, a journey whose goal is not getting someplace else, but, rather, being where you are and who you are—where you is always in the plural.

    In the pluralmight be a good motto for Blaser’s courageous and anti-declamatory poetics, his profound continuation, deep into the darkening heart of contemporary North American poetry, of Emily Dickinson’s core value: “I’m nobody . . . Are you nobody too?” For Blaser, it is not only nobody but also no mind, or “no” mind, for this is a poetics of negation that dwells...

  28. INDEX OF TITLES AND FIRST LINES
    INDEX OF TITLES AND FIRST LINES (pp. 511-519)
  29. Back Matter
    Back Matter (pp. 520-520)
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