{"product_id":"robert-duncan-the-ambassador-from-venus-9780520234161","title":"Robert Duncan The Ambassador from Venus","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eProvides an account of the life and art of Robert Duncan (1919-1988), one of America's great postwar poets. This title takes us from Duncan's birth in Oakland, California, through his childhood in an eccentrically Theosophist household, to his life in San Francisco as an openly gay man who became an inspirational figure for the many poets.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"A comprehensive, well-researched, and beautifully written biography... Jarnot brings Duncan to life as a gay man and a brilliant poet engaged with the cultural and political issues of his time.\" Publishers Weekly \"An edifying study of a poet who did much to inspire the next generation of poets, and it is an entertaining life story. This book should be looked to as a template for other biographies of twentieth-century poets.\" -- Daniel Coffey Foreword \"A chronicle that should be utterly absorbing for anyone interested in twentieth-century American poetry.\" -- Ray Olson Booklist \"Jarnot's biography offers an eloquent testament to an American poet trying to be responsible to the human spirit... It will compel us all to reread Duncan's poetry-breathtaking as it is.\" -- Seth Lerer San Francisco Chronicle \"For many younger readers, the members of the post-World War II 'San Francisco Renaissance,' like their cohorts among the Black Mountain poets, are little more than names... Posterity winnows ruthlessly, and, rightly or not, the American poets of the 1950s, '60s and '70s who seem to be passing into the canon are largely East Coast folk... This makes Lisa Jarnot's biography of Duncan all the more valuable.\" -- Michael Dirda Washington Post Book World \"Jarnot has done her homework, and she gives readers an exhaustive, meticulously detailed account of Duncan's life... Highly recommended.\" Choice \"In organizing a mass of previously unavailable archive material, Jarnot's study will serve as an indispensable reference text-if not the first port of call-for anyone hoping to make headway through the metaphysical tangle of Duncan's oeuvre... Readers of Jarnot's biography will find Duncan's life realized, at last, in all its fictive certainty.\" -- Stephen Ross Times Literary Supplement (TLS) \"Jarnot is a sensitive reader of literary history and an admiring but not uncritical biographer. She is also not above serving up the scuttlebutt that we've come, as readers, to expect as our literary-biographical due.\" -- Robert Baird London Review of Books \"Lisa Jarnot's biography of Duncan should only stoke further interest in his work. She avoids the usual two pitfalls-worship and apostasy-by cleaving to a style so clean and free of editorializing or psychologizing that it reads like reportage... The result is a book of just the facts: what, where, when and who. And yet Jarnot, a poet herself, is sensitive to the symbols and cycles that defined Duncan's imaginative life.\" -- Ange Mlinko The Nation\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTable of Contents\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eForeword by Michael Davidson Preface  Acknowledgments Textual Notes  Part One Childhood's Retreat 1  The Antediluvian World 2  Native Son of the Golden West 3  The Architecture 4  A Part in the Fabulous 5  The Wasteland 6  The Fathering Dream  Part Two Toward the Shaman 7  The Little Freshman Yes 8  A Company of Women 9  The Dance 10  From Romance to Ritual 11  Queen of the Whores 12  Enlisted 13  Marriage 14  Divorce  Part Three The Enamord Mage 15  The End of the War 16  The Round Table 17  The First Poetry Festival 18  The Venice Poem 19  Indian Tales 20  The Song of the Borderguard 21  The Way to Shadow Garden 22  The Workshop 23  Mallorca 24  Caesar's Gate  Part Four The Opening of the Field 25  The Meadow 26  New York Interlude 27  The San Francisco Scene 28  Olson, Whitehead, and the Magic Workshop 29  The Maidens 30  Elfmere 31  Night Scenes 32  H.D. 33  Go East 34  Apprehensions  Part Five The Nasty Aesthetician 35  The Will 36  The Playhouse 37  The Political Machine 38  Knight Errant 39  The Vancouver Conference 40  Bending the Bow 41  A Night Song 42  Anger 43  The Berkeley Conference 44  The Sixties  Part Six Domestic Scenes 45  The Household 46  The Summer of Love 47  Days of Rage 48  Ground-Work 49  Helter Skelter 50  Santa Cruz Propositions 51  The Torn Cloth 52  Despair in Being Tedious 53  The Cult of the Gods 54  Elm Park Road 55  Riverside 56  The Heart of Rime  Part Seven Troubadour 57  An Alternate Life 58  Cambridge 59  The Avant-Garde 60  Adam, Eve, and Jahweh 61  San Francisco's Burning 62  At Sea 63  The Cherubim 64  Alaska 65  Enthralled  Part Eight The Master of Rime 66  New College 67  Five Songs 68  A Paris Visit 69  Bard 70  The Baptism of the Blood 71  Hekatombe 72  The Year of Duncan 73  The Circulation of the Blood 74  In the Dark  Notes Bibliography Index","brand":"University of California Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49402817380695,"sku":"9780520234161","price":30.6,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9780520234161.jpg?v=1730481592","url":"https:\/\/bookcurl.com\/products\/robert-duncan-the-ambassador-from-venus-9780520234161","provider":"Book Curl","version":"1.0","type":"link"}