The prose writings of Charles Olson (1910–1970) have had a far-reaching and continuing impact on post-World War II American poetics. Olson's theories, which made explicit the principles of his own poetics and those of the Black Mountain poets, were instrumental in defining the sense of the postmodern in poetry and form the basis of most postwar free verse. The Collected Prose brings together in one volume the works published for the most part between 1946 and 1969, many of which are now out of print. A valuable companion to editions of Olson's poetry, the book backgrounds the poetics, preoccupations, and fascinations that underpin his great poems. Included are Call Me Ishmael, a classic of American literary criticism; the influential essays "Projective Verse" and "Human Universe"; and essays, book reviews, and Olson's notes on his studies. In these pieces one can trace the development of his new science of man, called "muthologos," a radical mix of myth and phenomenology that Olson offered in opposition to the mechanistic discourse and rationalizing policy he associated with America's recent wars in Europe and Asia. Editors Donald Allen and Benjamin Friedlander offer helpful annotations throughout, and poet Robert Creeley, who enjoyed a long and mutually influential relationship with Olson, provides the book's introduction.

Presents a collection of both published and unpublished prose pieces, including correspondence, articles, talks, readings, and stories.

Cultural Writing. Literary Criticism. Essays. These wide-ranging talks, essays, and interviews-beginning with Why Don't Women Do Language-Oriented Writing? and including Feminist Poetics and the Meaning of Clarity, Poetic Silence, and Cosmology and Me--are essential documents for understanding not only Rae Armantrout's poetry and poetics but her contribution to the development of language poetry in particular and contemporary poetry in general. Like her poetry, Armantrout's prose is marked by concision, a refreshing absence of jargon, and a quizzical mind that never rests easy. COLLECTED PROSE also features True, Armantrout's illuminating autobiography, which details her early years in San Diego and Berkeley.

The celebrated author of "The New York Trilogy, The Book of Illusions" and "Oracle Night" now offers an essential collection of essays, prefaces, true stories, autobiographical writings, and collaborations with artists.

This is the first collection of Robert Lowell's poetry which reveals a writer of unmistakeable brilliance who has a profound insight into the human condition.

"Paul Celan (1920-1970) stands as one of the greatest post-war European poets, a writer whose painful struggle with the possibilities and limitations of German, his native language, has helped to define the response of poetry in the aftermath of the Holocaust." "The writings and aphorisms on poetry and art illuminate the sources of his language: he explores the condition of being a stranger in the world, the necessity - and limitation - of discourse, enlarging our understanding of the poet and his vocation. A spare and reluctant prose writer, Celan speaks with a quiet authority that insists on the centrality of poetry in the modern world."--BOOK JACKET.

Fifty years of writing on literature, film, and art by one of the most influential poets and critics of our time