Ed Dorn

Edward Dorn (April 2, 1929-December 10, 1999) was a United States poet associated with the Black Mountain poets.

Dorn was born in Villa Grove, Illinois and studied at the University of Illinois and at Black Mountain College (1950-1955). At the latter school 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. 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.

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.

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.

Dorn's main work, 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. His papers are collected at the University of Connecticut.

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 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, 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.

References

The Lost America of Love: Rereading Robert Creeley, Edward Dorn, and Robert Duncan by Sherman Paul. Baton Rouge, Louisiana State University Press, 1981.
Obituary, by James Campbell. The Guardian, December 14, 1999,
Edward Dorn: A World of Difference by Tom Clark. Berkeley: North Atlantic Books, 2002.

External links

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