POETRY

The Anthology of Black Mountain College Poetry

Univ. of North Carolina. Feb. 2025. 480p. ed. by Blake Hobby & others. ISBN 9781469683447. pap. $34.95. POETRY
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From its opening in 1933 to its closing in 1957, Black Mountain College was a small school in Black Mountain, NC, near Asheville. Based on the democratic ideals of John Dewey and a devotion to the liberal arts, experimentation. experiential learning, and community, it was an Eden on Lake Eden and became a gathering place for artists, musicians, and poets. Edited by Hobby (former executive editor, Black Mountain College Studies), Alessandro Porco (English, Univ. of North Carolina, Wilmington), and Joseph Bathanti (interdisciplinary education, Appalachian State Univ.), this anthology includes more than 50 poems by people who were Black Mountain faculty (including painter Josef Albers and poets Charles Olson and Robert Creeley); visiting faculty (novelist May Sarton, composer John Cage, architect R. Buckminster Fuller, writer Paul Goodman); students (Galway Kinnell, Edward Dorn, John Wieners); or affiliates (poets Paul Blackburn and Denise Levertov).
VERDICT Well thought-out, the selections in this anthology beautifully introduce readers to this special college and to poets deserving of high praise and appreciation.
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